Chèvrefeuille
by Hereticality
Summary: AU where Le Chiffre and his group survive and manage to stay afloat. It's a cloudy day in Paris, barely two months have passed, and he gets himself in trouble again. F/M/M relationship, Valenka/Le Chiffre/Kratt
1. The River – part 1

Valenka has some thoughts and troubling dreams.

* * *

Valenka steps out on the balcony, and breathes in the first breeze gusting over Paris.

She is very wary of balconies these days, but Kratt checked it for her and it quelled most of her unease. She leans her forearms on the black curled ironwork railing, and roams her gaze over the distant horizon bathed in the late afternoon sun. If she squints, she can see tall grey clouds, like far away cities in the sky, over the mountains. She can hear music, just barely, somewhere in the distance.

The late summer days, when the air already carries a crisp edge of autumn in the mornings and evenings, were always her favourite. She finds home in the browning colours, in the bright spots that shine all the better against the greying cutout.

The hotel they're staying at is not as tall as to grant her a view like those she had in Manhattan or London, but she can still see the city span beyond sight in every direction, and find momentary peace in the openness of her range of vision. In the scattered sunlight she sees rooftops and green patches and people, and she breathes in the muffled bustling of activity with anticipation coiled tight in her chest.

Sometimes, she feels like she called the storm upon them.

The catastrophic failure of their group is recent, fresh on their skin like a bright red scar. Their lives are still upside down, they're trying to adapt to all the changes they had to go through, they had to pick up again habits long-forgotten.

The last few years, filled with cosy routines, steady flows of money and luxuries, and only her lover's moods and headaches to worry about, have sunk roots into her as a sort of lethargic restlessness that just begged to be shaken. She got what she wanted, in a way.

Early on, very early on, she used to smell like chamomile, have dirt under her nails, and make things grow. She made red carnations and orchids bloom in the autumn, and her _babushka_ used to praise her like a miracle-worker. Her grandmother never made fun of her for blowing on plants thinking she could warm them up, for mourning the withered stumps in the winter.

Since she's left her homecountry, her life has been too nomadic for that. She had to scrap up every ounce of talent to manage scams, study at night to give off the impression that she actually finished school.

She used to outdrink men all sizes and tie her hair up to get elbow-deep into the dirty work. She used to run and swim every day because quick legwork makes for quick kills, and the only plants she handled were in the form of toxic extracts.

She used to smoke, just for show at first, just because men would offer her cigarettes and they'd listen to her if she smoked with them. Then she got a taste for it that burned off her other tastes like a short-circuit killing lightbulbs. Living the way she lived, constantly exposed, constantly leaving places behind, constantly passing on food just to travel and dress the part, it had been a mundane miracle that she never got into the heavier stuff.

She liked that life, in a way. Somehow it felt less alien than just asking for anything she'd like to have and not even have to touch her own savings; less alien than a nightstand with no lipstick-stained stubs filling the ashtray. She felt more her own when she owned nothing but her skin and bones: she could be fearless, she had nothing to lose. No praise, no illusion of home to tie her back. No one to please but herself.

Le Chiffre made it an art of binding the desperate to himself, with small favours and small charms and small pay checks. He took her in like a stray, and sometimes she's angry at herself for allowing him to get under her skin like he did, to cage her in the hot-and-cold grip of his affections. For worrying about him like she does.

When disaster hit, she searched herself for the desire to leave, and she couldn't find a scrap of it. She knows very well how little loyalty pays in their world, and she was never less sure of her role. More than ever divided into waiting for orders – any order, any chance for action – and waiting for something to bend so far it breaks, she can just wait, and play petty games of matchmaking.

In all this, knowing that Paris always has the same grip on her is somewhat comforting. She raps the beat of _The River_ with her knuckles on the railing and sighs; comfort never meant safety to her, after all.

Showing their faces around Europe is anything but wise right now, but she has no idea if there's _anywhere_ they could be safe, so hiding in plain sight could actually be a good course of action. They're good at that, they always have been.

They are, of course, here for business. What they've been trying to do for the last two months, beside making back as much money as possible and hide it like squirrels on the brink of winter, has been working to crawl back into the shadows after being so harshly exposed.

Every time Le Chiffre phrases it like that she gets the mental image of a vampire chasing after the lid of his coffin, shrieking and blistering in the sunlight, irreparably damaged like a turtle stripped of its shell. She'd pause and cringe, and tell herself to stop watching creepy midnight blockbusters _and_ Discovery Channel on the same evening. She's unfortunately prone to getting bored and restless at the unholiest hours, so it's often all hotel TV service has to offer her.

She walks away from the railing and ducks under the curtains into the room again. It's quite nice, actually, only very beige and very empty, hence the TV left on as surrogate human companionship. Also, she likes the sound of French.

She read a theory once – or maybe Le Chiffre told her – about how Russian speakers can easily pick up the pronunciation of any other language because the sound range of Russian is the widest possible. However the information came to her, it still hasn't enabled her to speak French in front of Parisians without wanting to crawl in a hole and die. And she already had her dose, as Le Chiffre and his perfect-yet-charmingly-accented French started tackling business right off the plane, leaving all hotel-related issues to her and a very restless Kratt.

In retribution, she had booked only one room for all three of them. Aside from the obvious implications, she honestly had no idea where she was paying from, and thought it best not to splurge. Punching in the code, she had felt that old thrill of fear like the first few times she had used stolen credit cards and a skimmer to get by.

Nonetheless, Kratt had gifted her decision something like five whole seconds of wide-eyed, red-eared attention, and she had smirked smugly at the receipt as they walked the spacious lobby to the escalators. It had considerably lessened the feeling that nothing had changed and she was still a kid getting by with stolen money, which she appreciated.

Then, Kratt had gone back to trying to hide how worried he was. Even if she'd reminded him that Leo and his guys were chauffeuring their boss around, so he was safe, Kratt had kissed her apologetically – and too quickly and still hesitantly – and skipped off after Le Chiffre right after dumping their light luggage in a small pile in the middle of the room. Where it currently sits, untouched.

She walks to the bed and lets her body drop on it, arms wide, occupying the whole of it. It's springy, and big, and not bad at all. She contemplates the idea of a nap: she hasn't mastered the art of sleeping on planes yet, and the five hours spent flying are catching up on her.

She thinks about Le Chiffre, so often tossing and turning in bed and spending nights working up his ELO on because he can't fall sleep, and then out like a light on the first moving vehicle of sorts.

_He must be one of those people born to travel_, Valenka thinks somewhat drowsily, _the kind that just picks languages wherever they go, like collecting pretty stones._

He was probably meant to leave his homecountry, and take his trouble-magnet genius ass around the world, much like she felt she was meant to flee Russia, and much like Kratt was meant to take the first job that could take him out of Germany.

The difference is that she has no idea what homecountry that would be: he never talks about the past, nor answers questions about it. Never does, never had. Not that, with the conjoined effort of deftly deflecting questions and Kratt's menacing glare, anybody bothers to try anymore. Their newer associates, sometimes, when very drunk. Everyone wants bedtimestories when drunk.

Valenka had given much thought about how, over time, his mysteriousness had brought each one of them to build their own little version of Le Chiffre's story. A create-your-own-boss thing, like playing with paper-dolls. She had noticed, talking to some who were less private than Le Chiffre about their lives and less careful about their alcohol intake, that almost everybody's version mirrored their own past one way or another.

It was evidently very important to them to see the person they worked for as someone who shared their experiences. She had found it peculiar and sort of endearing, if not a bit silly, at first.

At least until it made her think about how, when the nightmares jolted her awake shaking and sweating, she would actually do pretty much the same: she'd make up stories, playing them in her mind like movies, vivid dream-like fantasies to lull herself back to sleep.

She closes her eyes, smiling self-indulgently. In her imagination the three of them are children together, and they go everywhere as an unshakable, inseparable trio. Together, they solve all her recurring dreams for the better.

Once, at an unremarkable point of childhood, she had seen a cat circled by stray dogs. The cat was a scrawny thing, maybe old or ill, and judging by the chewed ears and missing eye, she had been sure it had seen its share.

Valenka remembers her pudgy, dirty-nailed fingers gripping excitedly on the wire-mesh fence separating her from the scene; she had been so sure it'd get away, leap right on a dog's nose and away to safety, on a roof. Cats were supposed to wander roofs, weren't they? Swift and untouchable, like shadows.

Yet the dogs had closed in, growling like hell-beasts from a nightmare, sharp teeth dripping brown drool. She remembers the unforgiving clarity of her first cold dip into inevitability: the cat was not getting away.

The man she was taught to call _papa_ had held her back by the hood of her coat. He prevented her from climbing the fence and walk into a pack of famished strays, just like a sensible father would.

He'd also held her there, and forced her to watch the whole of the cat's end. She remembers how she wanted to jam her fingers in her ears, but they were locked on the fence, gripping it like ivy roots on a wall, and she couldn't move them at all. She _knows_ it screamed in agony and panic, like any creature would; yet in her memory, the cat has no voice.

Her step-father had wanted to toughen her up, teach her a lesson. But there were no comforting arms around her while she stood frozen and watched, blinding cold sun drowning in pooling blood, no explanations about the _circle of life_ or whatever.

There was nothing, and she had to get used to it. Violence simply happens, if you're involved you fight or you run, you kill or get killed; if you're not involved you stand aside and let it happen.

She's not sure those have been the actions of a sensible father, or someone attempting to be. Her step-father never tried very hard. She had been so angry she couldn't even cry. It had been the first time she felt something so strongly it dried up her tears: she didn't want to watch it happen and not do anything about it.

In that moment she had vowed to never stand and watch again, a vow as passionate as is was short lived: life had made sure to kick those silly dreams of chivalry out of her, and place self-preservation first on her priority list. She assumes that's why, later in life, she took agency the wrong way and became a perpetrator of violence. Yet, even as an adult, she'd still catch herself grow angry about that stupid half-blind cat, with all the bitterness of ill-healed scars.

In the story she plays in her head like a cheesy Sunday-night movie, seven year olds Kratt and Le Chiffre are with her, holding each of her hands. Kratt's head is shaved like a young monk's, Le Chiffre's scarred eye is heartbreaking in his round child's face; they're clad in black like their adult counterparts, and she is dressed in pink and yellow and has dirt under her nails.

No one is praising her for insignificant miracles, but no one is keeping her still and attempting to teach her shitty lessons either. Kratt is strong, and Le Chiffre is smart; she's sure that, with them there, they could have come up with something, they wouldn't have been powerless.

The fantasy sours up when she can't think of anything she has to add to the group, of a reason for her to be there.

_But it's my memory,_ she protests, frowning and turning on her side, but she's already slipping into disturbed dreams, and her voice is much younger, much ripe with helplessness, _I have to be there._

In her imagination, the cat lunges at her and she sees its blind eye is greyish-blue, and it screams in her lover's voice.


	2. The River – part 2

Le Chiffre gets an eye-check and has a lot on his mind.

* * *

Le Chiffre walks the streets of the only city in the world he considers, in a way, _his_. In his mind's eye, Paris glows golden and anthracite like sunflowers with iron stems.

If there was a place he'd live all his life in, it would be here.

His mind slips into no other language as easily, there's no other place in the world he knows better. Here, watching the _bateaux-mouches_ sail the Seine at sunset, he decided he'll own a boat one day, no matter what. Here, on _quais_ and squares he walked every inch of, counting doubles in his head, he took some of his most drastic decisions.

He's alone. He knows he shouldn't be, that he should be careful.

Since he was not captured or executed, his image was not made public; but still, his features are pretty uncommon, and someone could always spot him and report to the wrong people. There would be little space for cases of mistaken identity, then. Walking in daylight has maybe never been more of a risk, but at the same time he knows the city's heterogeneous nature can hide him just as well as his shadows. As a man in a suit on the Capital's busy streets, he's certainly not the most eye-catching individual around.

His mental map of Paris is undoubtedly the most complete and detailed he built up to this point. He knows every shady corner, every shortcut and escape route. The city has _no way_ to betray him. If he wanted, he could navigate it in the dead of night, with his eyes shut.

Yet, he'd rather not, he ponders while waiting at a crosswalk, not until he's found a way to add real time traffic to his mental map, at least.

_A navigator,_ Valenka had told him once while he showed off to her, _what you're thinking of is a GPS navigator in your brain._

She had always been endowed with the great gift of synthesis.

He rounds the corner of Rue Auber, his feet carrying him where he intends to go. He wiped the text with his appointment's new address after memorising it, his phone carrying no proof of his whereabouts. It occurs to him that actually, no one knows where he is at the present moment.

He inadvertently sneaked out on his own bodyguards.

He loses his train of thought for a moment, considering the necessity to contact Kratt. _After I'm done here_, he decides.

He needs some moments of quiet. Not that Kratt is ever noisy, of course – or maybe because of that. The newest developments in their relationships is a variable he's actively avoiding to dwell on. It just happens, all three of them benefit from it, no questions asked. It doesn't need to be complicated, he doesn't need to second-guess himself. There are more pressing matters at hand. Like his next contact not answering the damn phone, for example.

He woke up with a stuffy nose and the bloom of a migraine behind his good eye; a slow ache that, ignored, had spread into a sickly-warm cotton crown over the span of the day. Low atmospheric pressure. He hears the faintest moan of thunder far in the distance, and takes it as a confirmation.

When he drops from his musings back into the present, he's climbing the stairs of a quaint little condo at the crossroad of Rue de Hanovre and Rue du 4 Septembre. He pauses at the top of the stairs to take a shot from his inhaler, scanning the doors until he spots the plaque he's looking for.

After having it poked at and nearly butchered by half a dozen incapable hands, Dr. Jean Duran is the only ophthalmologist he'll ever let near his faulty eye again. She had diagnosed the elusive endophthalmitis that had kept him in agony for months, and was incidentally discreet enough that he didn't have to dispose of her afterwards.

He knows that, like she asked nothing in the past, she'll ask no questions about his patch of regrowing hair, where a bullet grazed his head. It's advantageous to be able to consult the same person every time he needs it, for once.

She greets him with a smile that pushes her glasses higher on her nose, and shakes his hand. She calls him by the alias he always used with her. To her, he's a polite clean-cut foreigner who always pays on time and is prone to accidents and unfortunate medical complications.

He supposes there's enough truth in his cover to make it plausible. If she knows more, she says nothing.

He believes in nothing but the certainty of numbers, the exact science of code and equations. _For any real numbers a, b, and c, if a = b, then a + c = b + c_, no interpretations or compromises or escape routes. Still, some form of childish superstition always prevented him from using his actual name as an alias, not even when such an amazing coincidence presents itself.

Dr. Duran gets down to business, inquiring about the state of his left eye. She asks permission before thumbing his lower eyelid down to get a better look. He appreciates it. His face still twitches under her delicate, clinical touch.

She has him sit at the slit-lamp, angles lenses and little mirrors, chiding him gently for not getting a checkup in more than two years. He arranges a bashful smile on his face, calling in his packed travel schedule as his excuse. She makes no comment; he suspects her practice to be quite often sought out by people in their business. She only pushes her glasses up with the tip of her finger, and scrutinises his magnified eye.

Until about six months ago, he could still see shapes out of his left eye, shadows of people and close moving objects, and he'd occasionally be startled by painful white glares, like miniature lightning inside his head. It's a truth he kept to himself in the last two years, letting everyone assume his eye was blind and always had been.

The doctor asks if it still happens, and he tells her the change was so gradual it went on unobserved until three days prior, when he suddenly noticed he couldn't see anything at all anymore.

Dr. Duran nods, pursing her lips and worrying them inaudibly against her teeth.

"Not even light changes?" she asks, switching on a small flashlight aimed at his face. He sees nothing. With his functioning eye, he sees in the reflection in her glasses how she's aiming the light directly at his unresponsive left pupil. It never appeared more clouded and blotted out than now, under harsh direct light.

It's contextually a long time before he remembers to answer the question. No, not even light changes. He stares at the blurred, sickly-yellowish contours of his iris. He thinks of cheap flowers, cheap tricks. At the back of his mouth lingers an unpleasant taste of finality.

Dr. Duran has him sit at other machines he can't bother to observe too closely, tests his stunted depth perception, and the various responses of his good eye.

Skimming her notes, she makes a noise of caught attention, and asks if he still experiences the peculiar episodes of haemolacria affecting his deranged tear duct. He tells her yes, he still does, especially in stressful conditions. She just frowns emphatically and recommends he pays attention to avoid infections.

He almost thought she'd tell him to avoid stress. He would have laughed. But no, aside from the dreadful threat of enucleation, modern medicine still has nothing to say about his condition.

A doctor he consulted, one time when he couldn't manage the flight to Paris, had tried to force a permission paper on him, to collect his bloody tears for analysis and write a paper on the condition. Kratt was already at his service at the time, because he clearly remembers giving him the pleasure of strangling the man to death. Dr. Duran is fortunately much wiser.

An old woman had caused a scene once, as he scrabbled for his handkerchief on the cobbled streets of _Civitavecchia_, pointing and shrieking _Maria Vergine...!_ and looking every bit about to pass out. Valenka was already at his side at the time, because he clearly remembers her laughing her ass off in perplexing, genuine, uncontrollable snorts. He had been quite vexed at the time, but now he's fond of the memory. He hasn't made her laugh much, lately.

He sighs. More than anything, he'd like some advice on how to get the damn eye to open in the mornings, as he often wakes with his eyelids sealed shut and it's becoming a problem.

Dr. Duran inquires about his current care routine and he recites the names of the array of eyedrops and medication he keeps in an anonymous black beauty-case, already arranged in individual plastic zip-bags, ready to be inspected and overtaxed at every airport along with his goddamn salbutamol, everywhere he goes.

She recommends boric acid eyewash, some blepharitis prevention drops, and to throw away some of the products he's currently using. No, there's no need for a list, he'll remember, thank you.

Last but not least, Dr. Duran makes him sit on the farthest chair in her study and read numbers decreasing in font-size off a projector screen. As he gratefully obliges, his mind goes flat and peaceful for a long moment, and she nods and says _yes, good, very good_. There are no bad news waiting there.

When she congratulates him on his good eye's 20/20, he feels he can breathe easier, free of the anxiety that lurked undetected at the back of his mind, so firmly rooted there he considers it just as much as his headaches.

He pays and shakes her hand and she insists he calls as soon as possible to schedule another appointment, that he never again lets so much time pass between checkups.

He has barely any idea of where he'll be in the next months, but he promises anyway. As he skips down the stairs, he gets a mental reminder that makes him switch his phone out of sleep-mode before he even remembers what he had to do with it.

He scrolls his missed calls: the numeric code he uses for Kratt's name glows at him from the screen, five times, and Leo's one follows suit, twice.

Distracted by the missed call after Kratt's last, from a contact he is to meet during the day, he just texts him his best approximation of the time he'll be back at the hotel, and switches to sleep-mode again.

He rounds the corner light on his feet, even smiles politely and gives indications when a carful of lost Americans roll down their window near him and butcher French in the attempt of asking.

He cares nothing for the dark grey clouds approaching: Kratt will remember an umbrella, or he'll get wet, whatever. He decides he'll go alone to his next meeting too, and that he'll call Kratt and Val when he's done with that as well.

After all, he wanted it to be a surprise.


	3. The River – part 3

Kratt thinks romantic thoughts and gets a worrisome phone call.

* * *

Kratt is sitting on a bench under the trees of the Quai de Gesvres when his phone pings in his hands, making him jolt and nearly drop it.

He flips it open, peers at the name above the new text message and allows himself a huge sigh of relief. He thanks every god he doesn't believe in.

The text only says, _'21 hotel bar – get V after'_ but from it he's able to decode their whole plans for the night. And, especially, that he's safe and sound. Kratt was literally seconds from calling Leo and face the risk of interrupting a meeting. He sighs again; he misses the days when _they_ could call things off if a client was as careless as to answer the phone while talking to them.

The text means that his boss' phone is on again, but Kratt doesn't call him. He remembers Val's lessons: he'll see him in less than an hour, no need to be suffocating. He plays the words in his head, in her beautiful soothing voice: _try not to be paranoid, not every corner hides a sniper, Obanno's dead. Also give him space, he's not used to boyfriend stuff._

He feels like grinning a bit at that. Head dropping back on the headrest, he inhales and exhales slowly, closing his eyes and concentrating on the feeling of the grass under his shoes, the sturdy wooden boards supporting his back, and the soft rustling of leaves overhead. _Boyfriend_, holy shit.

There are not many people around the spot he sits in, but he perks his ears to those closest to him. Spoken French was next to noise to him only seconds ago. Now, his mind relaxed, he feels immersed into the language's rhythm and can almost make out words and parts of conversations.

Maybe he should learn it, have his boss teach him. He grins, nose up in the air, breathing in the smell of the river and oncoming rain. He taps in his notes to take an umbrella with them when they go out later. He drops his head back again, bending enough to be able to see the cars passing by on the road behind him.

Even upside down he recognises the ad for the Louvre Museum on the side of a passing bus, the one with the _Mona Lisa_ on it. Sometimes it baffles him that there are things in the world of such immense value one couldn't really steal and sell them; it seems like a fine paradox. Maybe he should ask his boss if he knows where the line between valuable and too-valuable lies. He's pretty sure Le Chiffre could sit down, two fingers pressed to his temple, and calculate it for him if he asked nicely; it would take him five minutes tops.

A woman passes him by, eyeing his tilted back head with apprehension and moving her children on the side farthest from him. He straightens and wipes the smile off his face, self-conscious. He probably looked like a drug addict to her.

He allows himself to zone out until it's time to go back to the hotel. He wonders idly if heroin has left a recognisable print on him, like a permanent change in his body odour or the grain of his skin that he will never get away from; or if normal people can simply smell the blood and danger on him from ten steps away. Or it could just be his appearance, shaved head and all-black. Not his fault his less-threatening clothes are all still plastic-wrapped in his suitcase. Maybe he should have helped Val unpack earlier, instead of running uselessly to the rescue. _Space, remember, give space._

He swallows the guilt: Le Chiffre said to get her only after they meet downstairs, so maybe there's a reason. Maybe he has something for her, a surprise that will delight her, make her voice go up an entire octave. And Kratt will have them both happy and smiling at the same time. They're so lovely when they're happy, like two rays of sunshine in the tense routines of their lives.

He retraces his steps back to the place they're staying, trying to pry his boss' plans. Seeing his car parked outside reminds him of their reality; of how he prefers having it outside instead of parked in hotel garages, because it makes for a faster escape route in times of need. With the setting sun and nice thoughts and sweet humid air, it was too easy forgetting their situation for a moment. As he walks into the lobby and a lone cloud blots out the darkening sky, he starts to fear the price of his relaxation.

The bar is empty.

Actually, it's quite packed, but he can't see his boss anywhere. He slides into a seat, waits a bit, checks the time on the clock at his right. It's already 9:05.

His phone vibrates in his hand. He doesn't remember taking it out, and he can't get his earpiece fast enough so he just lifts it to his ear and answers.

_"Hey man, sorry if I'm interrupting anything, just calling to be sure,"_ Leo's voice says over the line. Kratt doesn't like his tone: he sits straight, cold dread spreading into his limbs like anaesthetic, numbing him out. _Oh no,_ he chants in his head to keep panic at bay, _oh no, not again, no no no._ _"Did we switch car keys this morning, yes? 'Cause I have yours here."_

He dares breathe out. He makes a thinking pause for himself, humming as he shoulders the phone and rustles in his pockets and pouch. _Knife, wallet, earpiece, receipts, some change, emergency pills, emergency knife, Val's sunglasses? Ah, yes._

"I have them," he turns the black remote-keychain in his hand as if Leo could see it. He hears him heave a sigh, almost as relieved as when they found the time to bail his ass out of prison.

_"Good! Okay, later then,"_ Leo says. He makes a noise on the other end of the line, like he just remembered something else. _"Uh, just to be sure again... I haven't heard from Boss since we landed."_

A pause.

_"He_ is _with you, yes?"_


	4. Hear Me – part 1

Valenka and Kratt get an even worse phone call.

* * *

Valenka wakes to the hard floor knocking her ass into reality. Without even bothering to get up first, vaguely grateful for the soft moquette that broke her fall, she paws at the nightstand for her phone.

It's around 8 pm, she managed to fall from a darn queen-sized bed, and she has zero calls and zero new messages.

She just leans her back against the frame of the bed, loosely drawing her sleep-numbed legs under her. She frowns at the open, empty screen, displeased: by that time, Le Chiffre is usually nearing the end of his list of meetings, and has made at least a call to check on her and plan something for dinner.

She pulls up the text app on her phone and has thumbed in Kratt's name before she hesitates, twirls it in her hand once and hits _cancel_. What if they're in the middle of something important? Kratt _always_ remembers his silent mode when he should, but it would still look bad in a quiet room. _Can't we even afford bad impressions anymore?_, she thinks rebelliously, then shakes her head at herself. _No, we can't_. The market has been unforgiving to them since their failure. She'd better take her own advice and not be paranoid. Yeah, good one.

She waits half an hour, taking a shower with the phone at full volume balanced on the edge of the sink, where she could hear it over the rush of water if it were to ring. She waits half an hour more, then counts every nerve-wracking second of the following five minutes.

At 9:10, when she finally goes with _fuck it_ and calls Kratt, she hears his ringtone – a very decent heavy metal cover to _Pokerface_ – coming from somewhere nearby and stands still and perplexed for a moment.

Her first thought is that she's taken his cellphone without thinking, maybe while they reviewed fake info to fill into the booking form; but no, the sound comes from behind her door. It _would_ have been a bit worrying to have mistaken his simple black flip for her shiny green smartphone, after all. She turns the lock and Kratt is there staring back at her, unblinking.

He puts the call off, greets her with a peck on the lips and immediately looks around the room.

"Listen, have you heard from–" they say at the same time, waving their cellphones. Valenka's lips quirk up and Kratt shakes his head fondly. He gestures for her to speak first.

"I haven't, no," Valenka says, watching Kratt's light eyes cloud over. He has very pretty eyes, of a deep greyish-blue and very expressive, and she thinks he himself would be surprised at how much can be read into them. She reads worry: as his right-hand man, partner and personal bodyguard, it's very rare and very distressing for Kratt not to have Le Chiffre in sight. "I thought he wanted to try out that place the airport guy recommended?"

"I was to meet him down at the bar ten minutes ago, then come up and get you." Kratt pauses and licks his lips. "He's not with Leo and the guys, I can't reach his phone, I hoped he'd be already up here."

Valenka feels a frown mar her face as she shakes her head. Alarm ripples on her skin but she doesn't want to give in to it, not yet.

They probably can't picture it at all – or at least _she_ can't, but really can't imagine Kratt doing differently either – how would it be if their lives didn't revolve around him, like a tiny solar system of three. Even if Le Chiffre more often than not behaves more like a whimsical moon, Valenka is sure she called it upon herself. She always preferred things that shine in the night and pull tidal waves.

"Maybe he got delayed, or can't get signal," she tries. Kratt shrugs minutely. Valenka places her hands on her hips, thinking.

Their boss' phone is often in sleep-mode, but always on: one can't track a turned off phone if needed; also, they all use international private providers exactly to avoid switching through sim cards every time they cross a border, and she seriously doubts a battery problem, not with the level of tech they invest on.

She watches Kratt shift his weight, clenching and unclenching his hands. The man is extremely protective of the both of them, and after a minor fuck up almost cost them their lives in Montenegro, his protectiveness can sometimes border on the paranoid. Go figure. Nonetheless, Valenka trusts Kratt's instincts almost as much as her own.

"You have a bad feeling about this," she says, giving in. He looks relieved, nodding at her. She leaves him standing there and goes fetch the pair of sneakers she brought along. She quickly gathers a few things in her backpack-purse, slips on the shoes and pockets her phone. "Me too, let's go."

They shut the door behind them, and a moment later Kratt's phone rings. Valenka glances at it and has barely the time to spot the icon of a black king of chess and _'Der Boss'_ as caller ID before he lifts it to his ear.

"Oh look, we summoned him," she smirks at Kratt, washed over with instant relief. She feels silly for worrying so much after a delay of only ten minutes, but the unease stays rooted there in her stomach.

Kratt answers the phone with a tightlipped '_hello, sir'_ and a smile in his voice. Valenka sees in the sudden cold glint of his eyes that the voice on the other side of the line is not Le Chiffre's.

"Who is this?" Kratt asks, switching to his curt business voice, cutting short both pleasantries and their caller's benefit of doubt. This is serious. Valenka has the distinct impression that her stomach is freezing over.

Kratt calls her attention, glancing at her pocket and back up at her eyes, switching the call to speakers so that she can hear too. She whips out her own phone as fast as possible and holds it near his to connect and track the call.

_"...–to cut it short, an ex-client of yours paid us to dispose of your employer, but is now withholding half our money,"_ the voice is saying. Valenka can tell Kratt is cataloguing it mentally by the way his gaze flickers. _Male, native speaker, American accent_. _"We thought you might like to outbid the offer."_

_How kind_, Valenka snarks, but not out loud. The man makes no names, of course, and she rakes her brain for an American organisation that does jobs like this one. The modus operandi is peculiar, and very risky, calling directly and trying to play both client and _customer_ like that. Valenka would know.

She grits her teeth at the thought that the bastards are probably praying on them because they know they've been clawing their way up from bankruptcy but are now out of Quantum's protection, and currently facing complete reorganisation. Much of the business meetings they do these days consists in convincing their old contacts not to cut strings with them.

The asshole on the phone calls it a _refund_, but what they want is a ransom: he lets them know that Kratt has until dawn to drain Le Chiffre's main account into theirs. They evidently decided their client could only be outbid with the entirety of their founds. This of course, _"If you want your employer back in one piece, so to speak,"_ the voice says, colouring with a tinge of mockery.

Valenka curses mentally at how long the tracking process is taking. If this is a joke, she's not laughing. She intends to share an incredulous glance with Kratt, but he's focused on how to get more out of their contact.

"How do I know you haven't completed the job already?" he asks, tone cold and neutral. He's trying to gauge if they actually have him, and if they do, if they have any idea of who they intend to kill. Valenka knows that if someone had tried to pull a stunt like that only three months before, they'd have agents pounding on their doors seconds from hanging up. Now they have to do everything by themselves, and can barely trust anyone outside their closest circle. She bets Kratt's thinking the exact same. His hand is clenching the phone like he wants to crush it. "Put him on the phone."

_"Well, I would, but,"_ the voice drawls, _"he's feeling a bit... down at the moment, and can't speak."_

Valenka actively blocks her first thought. And the one after it. She doesn't need the imagery that is trying to sneak into her brain. She needs to keep calm.

_"I'll send you a little video, so you can tell for yourself."_ A low ping alerts them of a received message, just a moment after. _"Crack up the volume, it's a bit homely."_

_Fuck it,_ she thinks as alarm seeps into her bloodstream, covering her arms in goosebumps. She doesn't want to see this. She feels oddly lightheaded, rooted to the spot and ready for flight at the same time. She sees Kratt's eyes harden until she has the impression they could crush diamonds, tear down skies and gods.

"Alright, now _you_ crack up the volume," he says in a terrible, growling voice, enunciating through the hard set of his jaw. They all over-pronounce when they're angry, to keep from slipping out of the common ground of English. When they can't do it, it means trouble. She hears an insult in German, a snarled hiss darting unstoppable out of his mouth; she can see his bone-white knuckles, his shoulders stiff with anger. "You bend _a single hair on his head _the wrong way, you _will_ regret it. Have I made myself clear?"

_Wrong move_. Valenka slaps a hand on her mouth, staring in horror. _Worst fucking move._

She can tell the exact moment Kratt gets it himself: a huff of amused breath on the other side of the line snaps him out of it, and she sees him blanch. Another faint ping, this time from Valenka's phone, tells them the call has been tracked.

_"Yes,"_ the voice taunts, _"yes you have."_

The call ends, and they stand perfectly still for a moment, barely breathing. Kratt meets her eyes and says quietly, "Tell me I didn't just say that out loud."

When he calls up the video, his fingers move in that overly controlled way they do when he has to actively stop them from shaking.

"You did, honey," she whispers back. When the video starts, she can't help but shut her eyes and press her front teeth to the fingers still on her mouth. She tries to prepare to hear screams and other horrible sounds come from the damn thing. She hears nothing but the crackle of low-tech recording, and the sound of steps. She swallows and asks, "Is it him? Is he ok?"

"Yes, and yes, apparently." Valenka glances at Kratt's face: he's still very pale but his eyes soften with relief. She dares look at the video, and feels chills on her arms again.

There's a figure tied hands and feet in a corner, unconscious, his head leaning against the wall at his side; she can recognise the shirt she got him to celebrate the first step of their reclimb, a tailored royal blue Oxford that fits his chest perfectly, tight but not constricting. Thanks to that, she can see that he's breathing. A bit fast for an unconscious person, but still breathing.

The video zooms in unsteadily on the pale, scarred face of the man they love, and the breath catches in her throat. It's him, it's really him; he's breathing, there's no blood. They probably drugged him when they took him. They put duct tape on his mouth.

They release an unsteady breath, and stand in silence for a moment. Her hands are shaking, but Valenka manages to calls up the GPS on her phone, gaining directions to the place they tracked. She can tell Kratt is still struggling to concentrate; she grabs his arm and squeezes once.

"It's getting to me–" he blurts out, running his fingers around the corners of his mouth in that same gesture Le Chiffre does when he's trying to hide his nerves. She can hear the panic seep into his voice; she squeezes his arm again, firmer. "And now... now I said– now they can play us– now they know it's personal– they'll–"

"Kratt," Valenka clips in her _Miss_ voice. She didn't mean to, but his back snaps straight. She gives him a small, firm tug and they start hurrying towards the garages.

"Alright, alright," he tries again, focusing. He's not a man that gestures much, but now his fingers splay as if trying to smooth out a wrinkled tablecloth. She can tell that walking aids him, but also that he's fighting hard to think past the fact that their lover is being held hostage and that by revealing a personal involvement he basically put the knives in their hands. "We're by ourselves in this. If they want me to work the account, it means they don't know that he has all the codes memorised. If they knew, they'd have tortured him first."

"It means they don't know much of us." Everyone with a bit of game in their world knows that Le Chiffre uses his genius for more than poker. He was never very subtle about his strengths; he was never subtle about anything. A sudden thought crosses Valenka's mind, and she breaks into a run still clutching Kratt's sleeve.

"_Motherfuckers._" When they reach the staircase, she lets her fingers run down his arm until they clasp hands. "Like _shit_ they don't know."

"What?" Kratt inquires, following her seamlessly. They reach Leo's car and Kratt rummages his pouch for keys.

"They taped his _mouth_ shut– all it takes is someone lifting dust off the floor– if he gets an attack, he's out," she gasps out over the roar of the engine coming to life, diving on the passenger seat and plugging the phone into the car's system. She sees Kratt's eyes widen in immediate understanding. "They made the video and called you to make sure we give a shit. They're waiting for us to walk in there."

Kratt nods once. She watches his fingers dig into the worn leather of the steering wheel, sees all the fear and doubt get wiped out of him in the face of overwhelming priority.

He closes his right hand on the shift and yanks into reverse. The eyes tearing away from hers have the cold hue of cornflowers, the sharp edge of cut beryl. She reads that he couldn't care less if it was a trap.

"Buckle up," he grits out, in a whisper that sends chills up her spine.


	5. Hear Me – part 2

A captive Le Chiffre takes shelter in flashbacks.

* * *

Le Chiffre is sitting with his back against the wall, and listening to the storm.

It's better than listening to his captors' boring chatter anyway. There are nine of them, five that came to get him and the rest waiting here, with beer and cigarettes and bad TV. He'd sneer if he wasn't sure they'd shoot him, and he'd prefer not to push his luck with bullets this time.

Wherever they come from, whomever they work for, henchmen all tend to look the same. Maybe there's a workbook he never knew about.

These men – always men – are all brawn: uncultured, idiotic, chipping in unexpected bits of normality in their conversations – football, girlfriends, booze – like desperate clutches for the world they turned their backs to. Occasionally, their employers redress them in ill-fitting cheap suits in a sad attempt to smarten them up. It never works.

He always thought Kratt, in his simple black t-shirts and turtlenecks and fitted jeans, looked much more intimidating and professional: he just absorbed part of his employer's style, the all-black, and adapted it to himself, and it worked beautifully. The fact that, though he has his moments, Kratt is not stupid at all probably helps, one has to consider.

He tears his mind away from him, from them. He doesn't want them to be his last thought while they _'cut him into little pieces while he's still breathing'_, as Bond charmingly put it what feels like a lifetime ago. The air has grown heavy with ozone and smoke. His eyes burn.

His captors sedated him when they took him, a hand shooting out of his blind spot, slamming a Rohypnol pill into his mouth and forcing him to swallow, right out the escalator of his second appointments's office. He was out for the whole trip. So much for security, so much for feeling _safe_ for damn once. He tears his mind away from that as well, embittered.

He feels the sedative wear off sluggishly, in dragging steps. They didn't bother with a hood or a bandage over his eyes, certain that waking up in a generic abandoned factory somewhere would be enough to confuse him.

They have evidently no idea than just breathing in through his nose – his only way to breathe in, incidentally – he can smell they're very near the river, that perking his ears he can hear traffic overhead and trains running behind, so that his location couldn't be clearer if they tried.

The building itself is in ruins, filthy as hell. He sighs. He listens to the storm, to distract himself. From the windows, way too high up to give him even a glint of plausible hope, he can see the sky glow white at times. Starting to grow desperate for distraction, he counts seconds to thunder.

He calculates locations in his head. 18 seconds, 3.6 miles east, _Val-de-Marne_. 10 seconds, 2 miles south, _Square de la Prairie_. 4 seconds, 0.8 miles west, the railway between stations of _Ablon_ and _Villleneuve-le-Roi_.

Aside from a bit of rough handling while they tied him up, evident in how his wrists are chafing even though he kept mostly still, they haven't touched him yet. He knows it's only a matter of time before they try to get out of him the codes they know he knows, the codes they asked Kratt to lure him in.

They'd made sure to tell him so, spill everything with ridiculous smugness. He has no idea if it was supposed to be intimidation or just plain idiocy.

He's tired of wondering if Kratt will be exactly as idiotic as to come for him. He's tired of speculating on what they'll do to him. He's tired of thinking about how uncomfortable he is, face itching from the tape and all the dust, breathing just a bit not to trigger an attack, of waiting for the moment his nose clogs up and he starts suffocating.

He's tired of trying to think of ways to escape or warn his associates, drawing invisible lines of tangents and calculating useless momentums and angles and weighting up hopeless probabilities against even more hopeless ones.

After a while he retreats back into his head, castling high up, where he can replay entire conversations and feel nothing, think of nothing.

The cigarette smoke is indoor mist near the ceiling. Where he met Valenka, years away from the shipwreck their life has become, there was a similar cloud diffusing the yellowish light. She glowed in the hazy half-light, and he was just recovering from his endophthalmitis.

With half his face covered with an eye-shield to keep medication in and perpetually high on painkillers, he made such a pathetic sight he'd found himself staring at her legs approaching with no actual comprehension.

Kratt's predecessor, a stout backstabber they called the Corsican, had stopped her six feet away from the table he sat at with his little portable chess-set, testing out and confirming his less than good impression of Alekhine's Defence because being officially retired didn't mean he couldn't give other Grandmasters his opinion. And also spilling lemon water all over the board because he could barely control the movements of his hands.

The white queen, knocked over by a fruit peel and washed away from her check, had rolled off the table and between the girl's feet. Like screenplay, she had picked it up and smiled; her upper lip made a full curly bracket shape that reminded him of pink orchids, and he had felt himself smile back. And cringe, because smiling pulled at the shield.

He had invited her to sit, and she had asked him to play. She introduced herself as _Valentine_, looked fresh and pretty and East-European, and kept looking over her shoulder. He humoured her, curious. She knew nothing of chess theory, but had good intuition. If the accent hadn't been a dead giveaway, one could have smelt the Russian on her just by how she played chess; he had almost been tempted to let her win.

Over the span of his stay, they had played many other times; curiously, she was defter at card games than chess. She flirted, but not confusingly: it was very gentle and pleasant, with an edge of smooth steel, like warm waves cradling him to sleep, and the certainty of a loaded gun under his pillow. The painkillers never helped with his metaphors, but she seemed to tolerate him.

She never asked about his eye. She told him a bit about herself, but not much. Her swimming, her hobbies, how she liked to grow plants but never had time for it. How she didn't have a last name anymore, but that she could tell him her real name if he'd like.

He'd liked very much. He had said he could understand: in their business people are often forced to shed part of their identity, but not everyone is ready to lose both first and last name. She'd asked him if he had been ready, and alarm bells had rung in his head.

"I've been dead for a very long time, you know," he'd told her, only half-joking. He'd got up, ready to keep only her first name to himself as a memento of their encounter, ready to leave her behind. "I don't remember anymore."

_Valenka_ had only smiled, and asked no more, as if sensing how going a step further would get her killed. He'd always envied the finesse oh her instincts.

When he found out that it was, in fact, screenplay, he hadn't been too surprised. One of his competitors had the girl in his service and was attempting to use her to get information. The classic of classics.

He had told her so while she sat on the bed in his suite, as he calmly aimed his Pocketlite 380 at her head.

With equal calm, she had shrugged and said, "I told him it was a shitty plan."

She had lain down. He would have been offended at her underestimating him so much. Then he remembered he was asthmatic, purblind, and an accountant; and that if he had been a girl in their business, playing dangerous games with dangerous men all day, he wouldn't have felt threatened either. Nor interested, for the matter.

True to her role, Valenka didn't wear much, but the sheets' frisson rucking up her dress had revealed the yellowish fade-out of bruises on her thighs.

"It cost you," he'd noted, pointing bluntly but lowering his gun. He couldn't aim decently anyway, and he'd wanted to test her, give her a chance. "Speaking your mind, I mean."

"It gets men angry." She had shrugged again, infuriatingly unfazed. "But I can't help it."

He valued that, still does, and he had told her so. Her glance had been a bit incredulous, giving a rebellious sheen to her face. He'd wondered how young she really was.

"I could use a new job," she had said in a tone of consideration, patting the space next to her.

He had sat, and then lain down, wondering how much she would betray him for, asking himself if he could be bothered to find out her price and outbid it, and then outbid himself again and again.

Years later, he still found himself mulling over the same question. Sometimes he'd wake in the middle of the night, shivering with ghosts of gunfire and explosions, and he'd look over to her and Kratt and extend his silent question to them both.

His encounter with Kratt hadn't been as memorable. Instead, it had been quite the vexing endeavour, with the purchase of Kratt's services ad the only positive outcome.

Kratt's previous employer sounded like a proud dog breeder, going on and on about this sharp German hound he trained himself, how deft he was with a blade, how silent and efficient, how loyal.

"And he needs such little pay," the man had said, smirking and waving around a small plastic bag of fine brown powder, which Kratt followed with his eyes like a starving wolf watches livestock. The Corsican had probably done the same, out of sight behind him, unnoticed.

Le Chiffre hadn't been too impressed with Kratt, and had been vocal about it: as he demanded sharpness and clear-headedness at all times from his employees, he could hardly condone addictions. An addicted man is a gun in the hands of whoever holds the powder.

At that, the young German had stared straight ahead, setting his laser-blue eyes on him, and given the smallest, most discreet hint of a bow. Le Chiffre hadn't noticed that either, but that had been the awakening, a strong hand fisting in Kratt's gut and dragging him up to the surface for the first time in a long, long while. It was in that moment that Kratt's loyalty had shifted, and he had been Le Chiffre's. Kratt had told him so, at least, quite recently and not in so many words. Le Chiffre is still thinking of what to make of it. He wishes he had the time to figure it out.

At the time, the dealer had only laughed at his gun metaphor, and made a poor attempt at wit, "By this logic, aren't you addicted to money?"

"_Au contraire_, my friend," he had replied, hiding the sneer in smooth affectation, "money to me is a gun, not a god."

He had been naive. He used to believe a personal bodyguard, someone he spent so much time with, could hardly keep secrets from him. He used to believe a man he paid enough to cover all basic needs would have no use for drugs, no reason to betray him. That had been before the Corsican lunged at him, hands clamping like meaty hooks, at the orders of the stamp bag in the dealer's hands.

Kratt had acted on his new loyalty as if he'd been programmed, fast and skilled as promised. _Then_ he had been impressed, in addiction to stunned and blood-spattered. It had almost made him believe in luck. Had there been a chessboard in sight, maybe a black knight would have rolled between Kratt's feet.

In their business, killing your backstabbing predecessor and taking his job is quite the classic way to get a promotion. All the same, Le Chiffre had not wanted another addict as his personal bodyguard, and had settled to give Kratt a low position and keep him there as an useful pawn.

When they had talked business, Kratt had asked for his pay-check to consist in actual money. He had been ridiculously hesitant about it, and then had shocked everyone by signing himself in for harsh rehab: in less than a year, he was clean and in such excellent conditions that not giving him the job would have been downright idiotic.

From the very beginning, Kratt had approached the task of personal guard in a very different way than the Corsican. To Kratt it isn't a job, it's a _vocation_. Le Chiffre can perceive it in his hawkish eyes following his every move, in the constant, silent strength of his presence. Right from the start, he'd been a rock of unwavering loyalty he started, unwittingly, to _rely_ upon.

Same as Valenka, he'd pay any price to keep him.

He knows that would require them to have a price, and he has no desire to discover that, tactical advantage be damned. He has asked himself the question so many times, accumulated so many hypotheses, that he doesn't know anymore. He doesn't want to know.

He hopes they won't come. It would be so _stupid_.

He asks himself if he'd come for them. He'd probably pay, or promise to pay, or arrange a con to make it look like he paid. He'd do _something_, but he knows Kratt and Valenka don't have the same resources. He always kept too much to himself for them to find and call the right people, these days especially.

A loud rattling of metal snaps him out of his musings. His captors are getting ready. Their boss is lighting a new cigarette, blowing smoke at him. A vision of Val surfaces in his mind, shrivelled at the corners like a very old photograph, sweet perfume and heavy lids, smoke rings around her head like a sinner's halo.

He clings to it, body growing cold and still and thoughts racing a mile per second. He's crushed under a hundred aborted plans, aborted confessions and promises like angry seas he cannot control.

He won't get to surprise them, after all. He wills his breathing to remain steady, he fights himself with all he's got. As rain and thunder strike outside, the men circle him, stray dogs from Val's reoccurring nightmare, closer, closer, and he can't get away.

He prays for his lovers to be stupid once more.


	6. Hear Me – part 3

Kratt and Valenka summon the fighting spirit.

* * *

For most of the drive, Kratt keeps silent.

It's a relief to finally steer into the N6 and speed up as much as he likes, the car gliding on wet asphalt until waves of vaporised rain spray the sides; driving into traffic in tense circumstances is everything he can't stand.

He gives a final glance to the navigator: now they only need to follow the freeway until they find a bridge, near the railways. The place appears to be on their side of the river.

Immediately dropping into action chilled part of the consuming, blood-boiling rage he had felt just hearing the bastard's voice over the phone. He and Val took precautions, of course: they texted the others for backup, and they should be on their way about fifteen minutes behind them.

As risky as it is, the first breach will be all for the two of them: something is telling him there's not a second to lose. He rubs his itching palms on the smooth steering wheel, speeding up some more.

When the road ahead is clear enough, he glances at Val. Her arms are crossed, fingers pattering in the crooks of her elbows; she does it when she's nervous, her face usually not giving much away. He peers at her reflection in the window, sees her eyebrows drawn in anguish; she's worrying her lip between her teeth and swallowing like she's trying to keep something down. He really can't blame her.

Her hand suddenly reaches for the CD player, but then she thinks again of it. She pulls back; the rain now hammering on the windshield is probably enough noise for her.

"Good choice," he utters, and she jumps a bit at the sound of his voice. "Leo's music is all crap anyway."

A slightly incredulous smirk finds its way on her tense face. She pulls a knee up to her chest and leans her arm on it, the back of her shoe against the seat without letting the sole touch it.

"We can do it," she says suddenly, with that edge of steely determination that can chill to the core men twice her size.

He has seen her do it. He feels at ease with her because he trusts her to survive on her own, regardless of circumstances. A sudden flood of affection rushes past his knot of anxiety, submerging it like a rock in a stream, and warms him up from the stomach outward, branches into his stiffened limbs. He breathes in deeply, breathes out, hears Val do the exact same. They huff a laugh, identically nervous and fucking terrified.

They've known each other for many years, but had never been close, not until recently. Even though he'd always admired many things about her – she could be sly when needed, but she's still a rather straightforward woman in their world, and her being still alive tells the whole story – he would have never thought she'd consider him a friend or more one day. They had clicked in many unexpected ways, and regardless of all their difficulties most mornings he wakes up looking forward to the day.

It's very new to him, this sense of adoring companionship, the pure bliss of feeling like he belongs. Even when both Le Chiffre and Val are a bit impossible, he's glad he has to deal with them.

He won't let what they have go to pieces. Back in Montenegro, he'd sworn he won't let harm come to them again. _Never again_. His hands clench on the wheel as something raw and primal crawls and covers his skin like armour, a wave of strength pushing and pulling at his insides, like a tide.

It tells him he'll fight to kill, or be killed.


	7. Bleeding Out – part 1

Our duo finally drops into action and kicks some ass.

* * *

Valenka is squinting at the lights across the river, rain pouring in sheets over her, seeping into her hair and collar in sliding icy tendrils. She left her purse in the car, because she has a feeling that she'll need full mobility.

Kratt stealthily parked near the bridge that landmarks the general area pinging red on the screen of her phone, under the trees lining the road. Now, it's only a matter of finding the exact place.

From what she remembers from the video, the building they're looking for is small and probably abandoned, and judging from the lights, with high windows.

They walk quickly and alert. They don't have a plan: too many unexpected variables. For orientation, they rely on their senses; when Kratt perks his head up towards the left and breaks into a run, she pinches the hem of his shirt not to lose him in the dark, and follows him.

They reach a building with high windows and, astonishingly, cars parked outside. They exchange a glance, then Kratt pulls out his spare knife and hacks the wire mesh fence, making an opening for them to creep inside. They circle the place for a backdoor.

She knows the rain covers the sound of their steps, yet she can't help but hold her breath and tiptoe every time they round a corner. When she finally spots an armed man she skitters in her wet shoes a bit, but mostly from sudden relief.

With only a bit of light coming from the windows, to her eyes the whole of Kratt is nothing but the glint of his blade. She hears a muffled grunt, then Kratt's voice calling her from near the wall.

"Did you kill him?" she asks, stepping over the prone, still figure.

"_Ja_." He presses the dead man's gun into her hands. She stands watch as he spends a few tense seconds picking the lock.

Valenka pushes her wet hair away from her eyes and slips the gun into the back of her trousers, as they follow the sound of voices through dark corridors and staircases reeking of dust and old grease.

The door that gives into the main room has been left open a crack, probably too heavy to manoeuvre quickly. Kratt slides down to a crouch before her, peering inside. She sees him tense up, something alarming in the feral hunch of his shoulders, like raised hackles.

She lays a hand on his back, both to subdue him and for balance, and draws her eye to the halogen sliver of open door.

She doesn't see much at first, just a wall of men's backs. Then, one of them lands a kick forward, and a pained yelp slams through her with the force of a blow to the head. Even muffled behind that goddamn tape, she'd recognise the voice anywhere.

Kratt shifts under her hand. She feels his breathing speed up, the muscles of his back quiver in rage. The same man lands another kick, and another. They hear the sound of spitting, then raucous laughter.

Valenka clamps her hand on the nape of Kratt's neck, holding him back like a hound from his scruff, shoving him a little. He turns wide eyes and flaring nostrils at her, looking ready to bite her arm off. They need a diversion, she mouths at him with a hint of desperation: if Kratt loses it, they're fucking done for. He nods, and tears himself from the beating going on in the main room. Another noise of anguish stabs at them as they turn their backs to the door to look around.

There's a huge iron hook, dangling from a chain ten feet above their heads. Valenka follows it with her eyes and climbs the stairs to the pulley. She doesn't need Kratt's confirmation to kick the mechanism until hook and chain come crashing down into the floor in a deafening smattering of debris and metal echoes.

"What was that?" come voices from the other side of the heavy door. She stays up the staircase, sees Kratt crouch in the shadows behind it. Adrenaline pumps through her so hard her hands are glued to the rusting railing bar. The door swings open, three men walk inside to check.

"Mark, was that you?" one calls into the corridor cast in harsh contrast from the light in the main room. Valenka recognises the shoes of the kicker; she feels Mark's gun dig into her backside, begging to be fired. She breathes and stays hidden, rust gathering under her nails.

The heavy door slams shut, the corridor plunges into darkness but Kratt's blade cuts the air with a hiss in a white flash of lightning, as he leaps and tackles the closest man. As she waits for a signal, her eyes adjust slowly.

"_Val_," Kratt calls up, like a summoning, and her body propels itself over the railing to aid him. She lands at the bottom of the stairs and rolls, back to her feet in one swift flick. It's not until she's swinging it at the kicker's head that she realises she tore out the railing bar she was gripping.

She couldn't care less about attacking a man from behind: when she lands a blow, blood spatters on her, echoing the rain outside. She wanted the action, she called the storm upon them, and now she'll fucking dance in it. The blow vibrates through her arms with the sickening crunch of bashed cranial bones, and she feels nothing but a rush of savage, vindictive joy.

Kratt is slitting the first man's throat, and the third is making a dash for the door.

"Stop him!" Kratt hisses: there's only the two of them, if he gets away and warns the others, they'll fail. Valenka feels like she never moved faster in her life.

The bar in her hands has bent on impact, and she hooks the curve on the man's neck, hauling him back and driving a brutal knee between his legs. Kratt is there to gut him before he can even begin to scream.

Someone is heaving to get the door to open, on the other side. Valenka thinks fast in the few seconds they have left. An idea comes to her, crazy and dangerous like all good ideas. She wishes she could believe herself. She grabs Kratt and makes a semicircular gesture with her hands, willing him to understand. He nods once and runs, silent steps growing distant in the empty corridor.

He disappears as the door is slammed open, blinding her for a moment. As the one that must be the boss shoulders through and regards her with a knitted brow, while the men make idiotic stunned faces at her. Her blood-stained arms and the others' bodies are hidden in the shadow halving her figure. She realises she lost Mark's gun, somewhere in all the rolling and roughhousing.

"You're not the one we were expecting," the boss says in a tone of appreciative consideration. The accent grates on her ears: he's the man who called them, the American. He turns to the three behind him. "It should be a bald guy. Who the hell is this bitch?"

She would laugh at how they took the time to set up a trap and then don't even know how Le Chiffre's group is composed. Or maybe she should take it as a compliment to her stealth over the years.

"Well, all the better," the American drawls on. "Do you have the codes for me, my pretty?"

She forcefully shoves Obanno from her mind: it's the last thing she needs there right now.

"That depends," she says, eyeing the front door from behind her fringe, "show me my employer."

She doesn't exactly see the blow coming. It's more like a rustling of clothes and stirred air, and she bends forward just so as to not receive the full force of it. She drops anyway, and has to fake it just a bit: her head pulses like it was split open and black splotches swim in her vision.

The men part to laugh at her, and peering through her eyelids she finally sees _him._ She has to restrain the sigh of relief threatening to out her. He's roughed up and drenched in sweat, but awake and breathing. A man is holding him up by his arms at an angle that looks painful, he's barely keeping upright because his feet are naked and tied, and he's staring at her with open, wide-eyed desperation.

She's reminded of how he looked over her impending mutilation, mute and powerless on the floor. She had been so scared for them both it's like she set her fear-bar for life. She stays down.

"Guys," says one man peering into the corridor she and Kratt came from. A lightning reveals the bodies, and his voice wavers. "Guys, the others are dead."

The boss roars an unintelligible word that could be _'what–?!'_ but Valenka has no way to be sure. She waits for it to click in the men's heads. She's suddenly not sure they had a plan after all.

"You _fucking_ bitch!" comes the inevitable conclusion, and they circle her. She sees their shoes just inches from her face, feels their presence in every nerve of her body. The one closest to her is the one who kicked her in the head. She curses his size 16 steel toe boots, waiting for them to forget the front door completely.

Kratt is the most silent runner she's ever met. One moment she caught a glimpse of him behind a column, the moment after he's grappling a man from behind and gutting him, and immediately diving for another.

A noise is ringing in her ears. She leaps to action, elbowing the knee of the one in front of her in the side, where it's all nerves and weak joint: even a guy that size stumbles out of balance and becomes easy to yank to the floor.

She's not sure she can manage to kill him quickly enough with her bare hands, but when he's down she fists a hand in his hair and slams his head into the floor, knocking him out. _Retribution, bitch_.

Kratt is still fighting the second guy, who managed to kick the knife from his hand. Kratt follows her lead and inflicts a German suplex on his opponent, hauling him up and dropping him back headfirst; Valenka dives after the knife and pockets it.

It takes her a second to realise the noise she's hearing is a voice. _Le Chiffre's_ voice, reduced to a muffled single note of distress.

"There you are, our bald guy." Both she and Kratt whip around at the American's voice, to see him smirking darkly as his only still functioning henchman forces Le Chiffre's bound arms behind his back. The boss has a hand to his throat.

The American seems most unfazed by having his men slaughtered by a _pretty bitch_ and a _bald guy_. If Valenka weren't so angry, she'd be impressed.

"So this _is_ personal, after all."

Valenka can see Kratt wants to speak from the way his Adam's apple bobs up and down, and that he cannot because his jaw has clenched so hard it locked. He's covered in scratches and filth and his nose is bleeding down all over his shirt. When he dares a step forward, the hand grips tighter, tearing a sickening rasp from Le Chiffre's abused airway. Le Chiffre is not looking at them, he's not looking anywhere: his eyes are open by just a sliver and half-rolled back.

"I thought your client wanted him alive," Valenka bluffs, desperate, her eyes glued to the vise-like hand squeezing her lover's life away. Her back is freezing, and it could be the rain or cold sweat, she can't tell. _Shit, shit, shit_. Here's what they get for going in without a plan. Here's what she gets for calling storms.

The American smirks. "Two months ago, you shitheads lost me half my money, you know that?" he clips, an angry streak in his grating voice, twisting his smile into a grimace.

She blinks, getting it. "You _are_ your client, then," she says, mustering all her calm and control. They _did_ seem a bit green for a hit-man organisation. She wonders if all dissatisfied clients are required to ambush Le Chiffre and strangle him or else they get fined or something. She wants to scream. "And also one of ours."

"I wasn't even looking for you," the man hisses. "I was here, doing my business. And then I see _this asshole_," he shifts his grip on Le Chiffre's face, pressing his palm into his taped lips, fingers digging cruelly into his cheeks. His released neck spasms with air and blood-rush and choked coughing, but he stands frozen in the grip, Valenka can see him shake, can see the little veins strain out at his temples. She hears Kratt's teeth gnashing. "Just... taking a stroll, fucking gives me _indications_ without a care in the world, and I think _'isn't that our favourite banker?'_ and then, _'wasn't there also some weird bald guy always glued to his ass'_?"

It must be an inside joke, a lewd one, because the man behind Le Chiffre grins and pulls him in, shoving him hard with his hips. Le Chiffre's eyes flare open, an indignant noise of alarm tearing from him. The men laugh. Valenka grabs Kratt by the back of his shirt and plants her feet to stop him: she saw a gun in the second man's hand.

"Good choice," comes the hateful remark. The American's fingers rake over Le Chiffre's head, pulling hard at his hair. "I'm not _bending_ any _hair the wrong way_, am I?"

Kratt is vibrating, thrumming with rage about to explode and rip to pieces with his bare hands. Valenka would let him with all her heart, but they need the guy to keep talking, they need an opening. The men laugh some more.

"So, where are the others?" the boss manages between raucous fits. Valenka can't think of anything useful to say, so she keeps silent, seething. "Don't tell me you did all this by yourselves? It's fucking suicide! All for this brokeass piece of shit?"

The second man points the gun. The boss seems determined to hold Le Chiffre's head still, hand still plastered on his face in a bruising grip.

"No, you're getting paid from a secret stash somewhere, I bet. There's no other way you'd remain afloat." He flicks his eyes between them, trying to gauge how much they cost, how much they'll betray for. He gives a harsh shake to his grip, chipped nails dragging too close to eyes. "Tell me where is it, or there goes the other one."

Valenka is about to release her grip on Kratt, fear spreading into her body. _Don't start trembling. Don't._ The bastard's right. It _was_ fucking suicide.

Then the man shrieks, "What the fuck?!" and tears his hand away, shaking the blood from it. "What's this?! Fucking _gross._"

"Is he _infected_?!" The second man shoves Le Chiffre away from him, and he collides with the wall, slides down it bonelessly. Valenka sees the red tear-streak marking his cheek, and releases Kratt in dream-like wonder. _There we go, here's our opening._

Kratt bares his teeth, takes two steps forward. Valenka sees him splay his arms and fingers and, back hunched and eyes of tempered steel, slam his fist into his open palm. A thunder echoes, shaking the windows overhead.

She stands in awe, just for a moment, and watches Kratt grab the American by his hair and shove his face into his raised knee; then, after throwing him about like a piece of meat, lunge at the second man with predatory, quivering calm.

The gun he held is kicked in her direction, and she just picks it up and walks to the American. She makes Kratt's knife slide on the floor towards Le Chiffre.

The American looks up at her, bubbling blood from the nose and begging, promising he'll pay her more, a lot more, he'll do anything, he bets she's a nice girl, a good girl, deep down, he'll do anything. She barely listens. She should carve those bleary eyes out, have him swallow his own filthy fingers.

She compromises by stomping on his hand, cracking bones under her heel, digging into the floor with long-forgotten viciousness. She whispers, "Wrong bet, motherfucker."

With a bullet between his eyes, she quenches his grating ragged scream.

Valenka breathes out, sidestepping the pool of blood at her feet, and turns to see Kratt acting out his screaming rage. He's kneeling on the second guy's chest and beating his face into a pulp. She sees teeth flying like rice at a wedding.

They aren't good people; never been, never tried to be. They're no saints, life didn't leave much way for compassion to grow inside them. They care for themselves, and their own, and the rest of the world can burn. They came for the one they care the most, claimed him back, and won. Valenka walks lightheaded, can almost hear her blood singing in savage triumph, her whole body tingling in satisfaction. She's aware the blow she took might need some attention, but she can't feel it so she doesn't care.

She approaches Kratt warily: he seems a bit out of it, pummelling a dead man like he has to kill him ten times more, his usual silence broken in half-growled curses that would make the sky tremble.

The sky does tremble, thunder roaring as if in answer, when she braves Kratt's primal fury and lays a hand on his shoulder. He cracks like a whip, grasping her arm and leaving gory imprints on it. She feels her nose crinkle, chill focus descending on her again.

"Snap out of it, honey," she says, willing her voice not to waver. "We have to go."

He blinks, a bit of sanity coming back to his wide, glassy eyes. They both breathe out.

"Is he–" Kratt tries, voice hoarse. He trains his gaze on the bloodstained floor, unable to look for himself. "Is he alright...?"

She turns around: still sitting with his back to the wall, Le Chiffre has freed his hands and is now scrambling to tear the tape off his face. Before she can do anything to stop him, he has yanked it off with a cringe-inducing depilatory-wax-sounding rip. She sees him curl forward with both hands pressed to his mouth.

"Seems to be, yes." Kratt trembles under her hand, as if he were about to collapse. Before he shoots up to his feet and runs outside, she hears a stuttering sniffle escape him.

She sighs, and tiptoes to Le Chiffre. He's sawing the rope binding his ankles with a bit of obsessive concentration, trying to breathe between coughing and retching and choking on curses all at once. He sounds like a stuck engine, and bruises are blossoming an angry red on every inch of skin she can see.

Yet, for some reason, it's the sight of his naked feet, soles chafed by debris and purplish with cut-off circulation, that almost brings tears to her eyes.

She wants to embrace him and hold him tight for a moment, tell him he's safe; tell him he's been an idiot, and they were so scared, but they came for him and it's going to be alright. She wants to say she's sorry for not getting there sooner, enough to spare him the spits and the beating and the vile insinuations. She wants to be weeks from this moment, when they'll be able to joke about it like they joke about Obanno's night visit.

As she makes to touch him, though, her hand just entering his narrow field of vision, his focus breaks and he nicks his ankle with Kratt's knife. He skitters away from her. He stares, heaving, as if he has no idea who she is.

"I-I'm sorry?" she tries, taken aback. Maybe the practical approach, "Can you stand? We really should go."

He just obeys, and palms the wall for support. The silence is worrying her, but there's not much she can do about it. She busies herself with picking up the knife he left on the floor, to refrain from helping him back to his feet and humiliate him further.

In the meantime, Kratt walks up to them, freshly drenched again as if he used the pouring rain as a shower. His nose has stopped bleeding and his hands don't look like a butcher's anymore. He's bruised all over, just like Le Chiffre.

He's carrying something she saw him pick up from the men's abandoned table. He finally levels his gaze to Le Chiffre's and, slowly, gives him back his inhaler, phone, and watch, like a knight presenting spoils of war to his king.

Le Chiffre accepts them, takes a shot, tucks his shirt back into his waistband. With evident effort, he straightens his back and says, "Let's go."

They don't comment about the state of his voice. He makes no attempt to look for his shoes, and Valenka spots them on a dead man's feet. She says nothing, feeding the deafening silence.

They meet Leo and the others at the front door, winded and soaked just like them when they first arrived. Their faces at Valenka's bloodstained arms and clothes are priceless.

"Bit late, guys," Valenka says, forcing cheerfulness into her tone. "You missed all the fun, but you're just in time for the clean-up. Good luck!"

They look at Le Chiffre for confirmation, and he just nods curtly, perfectly composed, but looking at no one. No questions asked, they go in without a second lost.

The three of them turn their backs to the echoing loudness of Leo's _"What the shit?!"_, and she can't help a bit of a smirk, darkly amused.

Before they begin the walk back to the car, Valenka steps out of her shoes and nudges them towards Le Chiffre's feet. He slips into them and doesn't even complain about the dampness: they are all constantly trying to forget it, the feeling of walking barefoot on asphalt. Or maybe he's just too exhausted.

They walk slowly, keeping Le Chiffre's fatigued pace. He walks unsteadily, right arm around his ribs; she's a bit impressed with him for not stumbling or falling once. She stops Kratt when he makes to help him, just shaking her head, and he dutifully keeps from trying again.

Walking in her thin socks, Valenka feels like the rain is soaking her from every direction, washing the blood off her skin, the storm from her head.

In spite of everything, she finds herself breathing in relief.


	8. Bleeding Out – part 2

Le Chiffre attempts to work his shit out, and reveals that surprise he had.

* * *

Le Chiffre watches Kratt and Valenka discuss in the front seats, faces harshly cast in the bluish light of their cellphone screens, outlined in the complete darkness surrounding them.

They're deciding a new route to drive back into the city, deeming it unsafe to just take the same way around. Backwards. In the other direction, yes, whatever. He sighs. He keeps silent because his mind is an unintelligible buzz and he knows he couldn't put a sentence together if he tried.

Valenka, since she's in better shape than both of them, volunteered to make the drive back. She spends a moment adjusting the driver's seat and mirrors to her height, so he assumes Kratt drove there adapting his body to Leo's settings, for reasons he can't fathom at the moment. They left him on the backseat by himself. He supposes he stinks. Or they wanted him to have the space. Either way, he stretches his cramping legs on it, joints popping like logs in a fire.

Valenka manoeuvres out of under the bridge and back into the road, and the car is blanketed in rain. She flips on the wipers and their rhythmic motion interrupting the rain fills the car with white noise. Following the motion as a distraction, he sees her check every second if someone is following them, her eyes flicking to the rear view mirror. He counts thirty-six glances and draws an automatic unwanted swipe ratio of 2.15 per second before she breaks the rhythm and he needs to shut his eyes against motion sickness.

He emptied the half-litre bottle Val gave him in three quick gulps, the water now sloshing inside him at every smooth overtaking. He breathes shallowly because his ribs hurt and his throat hurts and his face hurts, and he can feel frustration building up but he knows he wouldn't have the energy to vent it.

His hair hangs in his face, _like a nobody's child_, sneers an old hag from a memory, _like a nobody's child_. He swats at it, scrabbling the cap off his inhaler and taking a shot and another and another because his lungs feel dry and brittle like ugly withered poppies. He's unbearably cold.

"_Miliy_, hey," Valenka addresses him, angling her head to check on him in the mirror. He shies away from her gaze, turning to the right and aiming his blind spot at her, fancying himself invisible just because he can't see her. How _idiotic_. "You okay back there?"

_Peachy_, his mind snarks. He manages a feeble grunt. He sees her right hand move from the shift to tap Kratt's leg, but Kratt is already twisting on his seat to take a look at him. He jolts at the hand barely grazing his.

He's caught between _don't mind me, don't look at me_ and _please climb back here, I've never been so cold_. He throws a glance out the window hoping for a diversion; nothing but darkness and passing stripes of light. He breathes in shakily and attempts to speak.

"Unexpected road trips." His voice is a pitiful croak. He tries clearing his throat and can't suppress a pained hiss. Maybe the grip crushed something, maybe it'll never stop hurting, maybe his brain is drying up from lack of oxygen and he isn't even aware of it. "My favourite."

Kratt huffs thinly. The hand gives a minute squeeze and leaves his. Le Chiffre tucks it against his body, even colder than before. Maybe he's already dead, and his body is cooling up and starting to rot.

"It's so boring without the British dude tailing us, though," Val says as she merges into the highway, comfortably speeding up. He feels a tense smile pull at his mouth. Humour is good, humour helps him detach. He forces upright his aching torso, leaning towards the front seats.

"Ah yes, when can we go back to kidnapping people?" he inquires with affected seriousness. "I don't like being the one kidnapped."

Valenka and Kratt snort in sync. Kratt curses and hurriedly steals Leo's wipes from the glovebox, because it made his nose bleed again. They end up giggling like schoolchildren. His ribs don't thank him.

"I don't think anyone likes that, honey," Val manages between fits of laughter. Kratt has his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking in silent mirth.

He imprints the image in his mind, Valenka driving with her knee, hands pressed to her mouth and wet hair in disarray, Kratt laughing around his bloodied tissues like he slaughtered people with his bare hands every day after breakfast. He feels the haze of shock lift from his mind in stages, like layers of damp blankets. He remembers he should tell them they need to go somewhere else.

"Where do we go now?" Valenka inquires a second later, when the city lights start spreading in front of them and the kilometres to Paris on the highway signs become a one-number countdown. "We can't go back to the hotel."

He tells them he knows the place, that the GPS can stay off. Valenka lifts her eyebrows, but just drives smoothly through his directions. He navigates them without looking out once, concentrating instead on his mental map. The place he chose glows warm and perfect in his mind, like an inviting fireplace.

"Okay, we're here," Valenka says, s-parking not far from the exact address he gave her. Naturally, she and Kratt are eyeing the nearby hotel. He throws a conspiratory glance to the building across the street. "Fancy neighbourhood."

"Will they even give us a room? I look like roadkill here." Kratt gestures to his bloodied nose and t-shirt. "Maybe I should stay here."

"Leo'll kill us if we rough up his ride any more, especially since he had to scrub Resistance Army Lord from the trunk." Val rubs her chin, considering. Kratt snorts into the tissues. "Well, we don't have like _oozing wounds_ or anything, maybe if we stand in the rain some more we can pass as drenched tourists." Pause. "Or hooligans."

_Or authentic Parisians._ Le Chiffre stretches to the closest handle. "No need for that," he says, getting out with some difficulty. He ducks under the shadow of a jutting balcony, avoiding the worst of the pouring rain. They follow him after a moment. "They are expecting us."

They merely stare for a second, then settle into the practiced ease of arranged moves. They ask no questions. Val locks the car remotely, an orange flash of taillights in the night, reflection winking in the windows of the building across the street.

They spend some forgettable moments in formalities. It's very late and there's almost no one, but the few people present are of course quite ruffled at their sight. He tries not to think about how he's wearing a rumpled suit and _yellow_ sneakers. The people stop staring once he gives his alias for a brass room key.

In room 105, they raid the minibar for more water, then make a beeline for the bathroom. The shower is open, separated from the rest only by a glass wall that goes up almost to the ceiling. As Kratt goes to the sink to rinse out his nose, Val starts getting rid of her clothes. She asks him if he wants to shower first.

"No, I'll just..." he tries, track of thought dissolving into nothing. He gestures vaguely towards the sink.

When Kratt is also done undressing, Val tugs him into the shower. Le Chiffre looks at them, their heights perfectly aligned at 3/4 of the ninth tile; he imagines a straight line tangent to the top of their heads and going on into infinity, a perfect parallel to the ground. He turns away.

He relieves his bladder, then sheds his damp shirt to put his wrists under running water. It stings. Looking down he can see his chest blotted a reddish purple. He imagines his face to be no better; he splashes water on it, dragging wet hands into his matted hair, slicking it back.

His hands come out holding a fistful of hair each, and it takes him four long seconds to recall _why_. Then his throat goes so tight he heaves, elbows resting on the edge of the sink, back hunched. He watches the hair drain away, tries to keep breathing. When Valenka and Kratt get out he strips completely and slips in past them, avoiding the mirrors at all costs.

He lathers up mechanically, working the soapy suds into his scalp. It burns in the scratches the American's nails left on him, it burns everywhere. The air is heavy with vapour near the shower-head, and there are pale pink swirls on the floor spiralling the drain, from Kratt's nose or his bleeding ankle, he doesn't know. He feels like he'll faint.

He turns the handle all the way to the right, directing a rain of icy spears on his head and shoulders. At once it numbs him, and keeps him awake. He grits his teeth, letting the water drag away the dust and sweat and blood and spit from his skin, just like his saviours did under the cold rain still pouring outside. He leans his head against the wall; his hair brushes the tenth tile. He lets his eyes drift shut.

"Exactly how long are you planning to stand there?" comes Valenka's voice from behind the glass. Her left palm presses on it and her face pulls in a frown, her eyes a bit wide. He has no idea _exactly_ how long. He blinks. "Baby, you'll freeze."

He pries a hand off his own arm and shuts the shower-stream. Val takes a step towards him. He watches the long belt of her bathrobe drag on the wet floor, soak up his dirty water. When she touches him, her hand is too warm and too sudden. She pulls away like he burnt her, palms up and uttering _'sorry, sorry'_.

He must have flinched. Or she put her hand on a scratch and got grossed out by his blood too. He tries to quench the irrational certainty that he's about to be slammed into a wall again.

Kratt walks up behind her, a towel around his waist, and hands her the second bathrobe to hand him. Only when he sees his own hand next to hers he realises he's shaking. He focuses on her nails: they're so short compared to the general image of her category. Probably because she's not in that category, she's not in any category. She wouldn't slam him into a wall, she gives his scar _goodnight kisses_, she cannot be disgusted, it wouldn't be logical. He bundles up, forcing rationality onto his quacking instincts, wondering if he should read Valenka and Kratt's frown as repulsion or concern or pity.

He realises the robe is soft, but his skin registers it as scratchy, almost intolerable. He walks out of the bathroom, uncaring of the damp prints he's leaving on the floors. He parts the window curtains to peer at the building across the street, leaning a hand down on the cold sill.

Val steps around him and puts her palms there too, a foot and five inches from his. He hears her breathe in.

"Look, do you want us to leave?" she asks. "We can get another room or sleep in the damn car, just tell us. And promise to keep your phone on."

He blinks at her. He has no idea why they would want to sleep in the car. Why would they want to sleep together, alone. _Oh_, a bell rings in his head, like a wake-up call. Something is clenching and churning in his chest, so hard he has to fight not to double over. He ignores the question altogether, and keeps looking out across the street. Breathing becomes a task he has to focus on.

"Who're you spying on?" Valenka asks, following his line of sight. She doesn't notice his struggle, and part of him wants to shove her and Kratt out and lock the door, so that they can go and be alone together if they want it so much. Another part wants to fall to his knees and beg. He does neither; he's still so cold he can barely move.

He supposes it's easier to read him as unfeeling. He had read himself as such for a very long time. He doesn't feel much compassion unless he actively tries to, and he could never imagine why one would want to do that. It makes everything so difficult. He always tended to forget about people when he didn't need them, and it gave him bad names, but helped him survive.

"Those nice vines and railings over there," he points minutely at the top of the building. It can hardly be seen from the outside, but there's a penthouse up there, spotless and newly furnished. "What do you think?"

She indulges him, sighing. "Very classy. I like that kind of window that comes out like that," she says, squinting at the rain to make out the front in the fractured street lamp light. _Bay window_, his mind supplies unasked.

The language of numbers came easier to him than his forsaken mother-tongue, and its grammar is sure not to change once one steps over imaginary lines in the ground. He makes money and invests it and multiplies it and launders it because it's the most practical application of playing numbers, and gambling and winning has a pleasure to it that feels a lot like natural selection. Luck is a name people give to the maths their brain can't reach, but _his_ can reach it. He has the natural advantage. He _deserves_ it.

With difficulty, he arranges a smug smile on his face. "We can go see it in the morning, even have lunch there, if you'd like."

She tilts her head at him. How he pictured it, he'd have copies of the key to give her and Kratt in this moment, like tokens of affection, promises in material form. It pains him to spoil the surprise like that, but something small and panicked is running circles inside him, screaming at him to do something to tie them to him _now_, to keep them from leaving _now_.

"It's mine," he explains, eyes training back to the window. "It's ours, I mean. I bought it about eight hours ago. I thought we'd do good investing some in real estate, and the euro plays in our favour right now." He stops himself from rambling economics. When he looks back at Val, Kratt stands behind her, the same quiet sentinel whose shadow he could perceive at the corner of his left eye, up until six months ago. "I was on my way to take you to dinner and tell you when I–" he clears his throat, embellishing his bluff with a small hesitation, "when they took me."

Or at least he wishes he was bluffing. He wishes he really were as unaffected and resilient as the world believes he is. It would be a better survival skill than just being cripplingly good at faking. Val and Kratt just stare, blinking.

"So... we have a house in Paris now?" Val asks, on her face that note of incredulity that makes her look so much younger. "We're going to come here for business and stay there? Like, an actual place we can come back to?"

"A home. That would be the idea, yes." It was a wild move, that only took a few days of planning. For his standards, it's the fruit of whim, of _inspiration_. He's not sure he wants to get to the bottom of _why_ he's done it.

He's still trying to gauge their reaction. At a poker table, or across a chessboard for the matter, reading people is easy. It always had been. There's only a limited range of reasons for someone to change expressions or make a small incongruous gesture or hesitate or whatever, and identifying the clues is merely a matter of categorising and filing away for later consultation.

He tried doing the same with all the other kinds of interactions, he really tried. He's still trying. Sometimes he feels like his mind is an overflowing attic stacked to the ceiling with ugly, impractical designer crap and that the few useful pieces he gathered are buried under the mess and he can never reach them when he needs it.

He has no idea what Valenka and Kratt's expressions should tell him. They look dumbfounded, and he's clueless.

"You got us a home," Val says, with a disbelieving half-smile that could be promising, if he weren't sure their relationship's hanging by a thread. He smiles back, tentatively. "And you walked around all day unprotected, just to keep it a secret."

Everything in him clenches up. He feels his smile drop. "I also wanted to be alone for a bit," he clips, stung. He's starting to feel his heart pound in his ears, in the hollow of his throat.

Valenka moves half a step back, shaking her head and running a hand around her mouth. She heaves a sigh.

"Honey," she begins in a tone so dangerously calm his hands twitch down, as if to shield from a blow. She doesn't notice. "Do you have _any_ idea of how worried we were when we lost track of you?"

He feels his eyebrows climb up. "You could have traded me, you know," he tells her matter-of-factly, "made a good deal for your silence. And it's not like you'd be left with nothing if I disappeared, I took care of that. No need to be worried."

It seems they can survive so well, together, fending for themselves, depending on nothing. If they wanted, they could start over, have honest jobs, honest lives. They aren't stateless and believed dead, tangled forever into this world like it was _destiny_. They don't need bodyguards and inhalers and medication just to pull through the day.

He guesses it was the wrong thing to say, still, since the dangerous calm slacks away from Valenka's face, leaving genuine disbelief in its place.

"What the...?"

"Val, sir," Kratt interrupts, very quietly. They turn to him and he looks aghast at his own nerve for a second. "Y-You're arguing in parallels."

Val blinks. "I'm lost, I give up." She looks away from him. The rain paints greyish streaks on her face. She looks tired, world-weary. "The house's a real catch, good job."

He doesn't spare a glance for the home he tried to make for them. Instead, he watches her turn her back, taking all the air in the room away with her. He thinks they won't be needing the house anymore. They never needed anything after all, they never needed _him_. He feels dread build up like a wave too high to face and ride out, and he's just a patched up raft, a small island of a man, he's so cold he's stuck to the ocean floor, he'll be submerged. He'll drown.

"Val, _please_," he hears Kratt's voice as from a hundred miles away. Red-hot heat blossoms on his lower back, around his shoulders. He assumes it's a hand, and an arm, and desperately following logic he turns to absorb more of that warmth. It hurts almost, a living flame so close to his frozen body, but if he holds on maybe he'll be brought up to the surface.

"Wha–? Oh, _crap_," Val's voice sounds so distant as well, but less, about ten miles less. Heat covers his other side, air comes back to him. He draws in a ragged breath.

When he resurfaces, he's curled on his side on a bed in a hotel room, surrounded in warmth, like he stepped into blazing sunlight. Val's face comes slowly into focus; she's peering at him, lying very close, and Kratt's large hands are rubbing life back into him, moving under a soft clean sheet. The relief is so intense it's painful.

His skin tingles, and the hands on him are shaking. No, Kratt's hands never shake. _He_ must be shaking, and the hands are grounding him, keeping him from floating away from his body. His head spins.

"Are you _done_ scaring us for today?" Val demands, more anxious than stern. But still stern. She's holding both of his hands in hers, trying to warm them up, mindful of his raw wrists. "What the hell was that?"

"Panic attack," Kratt quickly supplies from behind him, so he won't have to answer. He's about to protest, but it occurs to him that Kratt has witnessed two before; after the failed bombing, and after _Resistance Army Lord_ attacked them.

As Kratt runs his hands over his skin, he's reminded of when he woke to Kratt hovering over him on those damn docks in Montenegro, frantically checking him for wounds – other than his grazed, bleeding head – and he had to read _'we have to go, we have to go'_ on his lips because he couldn't hear anything over the ringing in his ears.

He pushes back slightly against Kratt's chest, and instead of pulling away Kratt scoots as close as possible, adhering flush to him. His legs hook around his own, enclosing his cold feet in coarse-haired warmth. The lingering sense of danger that edged in his mind melts away; he uncurls minutely. _You won't drown,_ Kratt's gentle voice echoes from a memory, _I have you, I won't let you drown._

The idea of a panic attack, or that she could have caused one, makes Valenka emit a faint, strangled sound.

Kratt is quick to reassure her, "It's more of a situation thing. Stress, adrenaline, all that. And... I guess he thought we– didn't want him anymore...? Sir...?"

_You make me sound like a dog left on the freeway. But yes._ He just nods, spent.

"But you kept pulling away from us," Val says, leaving the _'you fucking idiot'_ unsaid but implied. "We didn't want to _crowd_ you." _'After you've been beaten like a rug.'_

"Well, how would I know that?" he croaks out, cringing at the petulance in his voice. Valenka leans in and groans into his shoulder. Icy droplets from her damp hair shiver down his neck.

"We just pulled some MI6 crap and killed nine guys to get you back, and you really think we'd leave you behind? Or trade you for stuff?"

"Depends on the stuff," he can't help but say. Val's groan sounds a bit like a roar this time. "What if they offered you valuables or estate or stock–"

"–honey, the fuck? I'm not discussing your monetary value while you're still cold like the dead." Val's voice sounds strained. He's very good at recognising exasperation by now. "Kratt, give me a hand, he keeps not making sense."

_Maybe I'm broken. Have you tried turning me off and on._

"You hold no quantifiable value to us, sir," Kratt says. Well, _ouch_. Before he can muster the strength to get up and leave the bed, Kratt goes on, "You are precious to us in the way invaluable goods are precious to humanity. Like national treasures, those things you couldn't steal and sell because they're priceless. Like the _Mona Lisa_."

They keep silent a moment. Then the unmistakeable squeaky sound of held back laughter surprises them, because it comes from Kratt himself.

"I'm so sorry, sir," he utters through his teeth, body shaking against him in the attempt.

"Man, you're so helpful," Val snorts. Le Chiffre feels the man hide his face behind his shoulder, the familiar shape of his nose and jaw pressing into him. "Good comparison though, I get behind that."

"The _Mona Lisa_ one?"

"The national treasure one." She swats gently at his arm. "Not that we don't like your enigmatic smile, huh."

Seeing it in these terms, it's plausible that their only option was to steal him back. Killing everyone in the process. One would do that for priceless things, things that can't be replaced if lost. Everything hurts still, but feeling like he understands is – though disconcerting – placating in a way he could never imagine.

Val suggests they all try to get some sleep. He sighs wistfully, because there's work to do in the morning and he's still riled up: he wouldn't say no to them churning out some more charming comparisons, wouldn't mind answering morbid questions, could use being held a bit tighter.

Val, though, focuses on the problem directly ahead. She makes him list the phone calls they have to make and the appointments of the day, then rattle off their contacts' ages and lawsuits and extramarital affairs in various combinations of decreasing orders, and by the end he's yawning. He can't wait for their group to get back to real business.

"Half of that is routine, I could do it in your place," Val says. "Really, you don't have to do everything by yourself. You can rely on us, you know?"

He stops himself from saying, _'but you said you hate speaking French in front of Parisians'_ because one time she yelled 's_top using your genius memory to make it look like you care!'_ so he's trying to avoid doing that. Even though it went straight to his list of top most confusing things he heard in his life – which is quite long, incidentally – if it made her so upset it must have been important. He feels like he needs to be careful.

"So, you _are_ staying?" he asks instead, because he can't help it. He fears for a moment when Val groans and stretches back to turn off the lights, gifting him a lovely view of her front but not answering.

He thinks about how much easier is to simply get lost in the physical, give and take and not think, not think just for one precious, hard-earned moment. Val still gives him no answer. He wonders what people with functioning empathy even _do_ with it.

"Go to sleep, _Mona Lisa_," Val says only, kissing him on the corner of his bruised mouth and leaning on him to kiss Kratt. Kratt settles back down, nestling his arms comfortably around him. He wants those arms to stay right there all night, so he grips them about the wrists, maybe a bit more firmly than intended.

"Of course we're staying," Kratt murmurs, unfazed, and leaves a soundless kiss behind his ear, where his hair is still growing back.


	9. Bleeding Out – part 3

Heavily NC17 version of this chapter (some 5000+ words more) can be found on AO3, same title same author name.

* * *

Kratt wakes to his boss shifting against him.

During the night he wormed his arms out of the sleeves of his robe, so that they're skin to skin. Kratt knows because he wasn't really sleeping, just lightly resting. Leaning his head on Le Chiffre's back, right on the rounded edge of his shoulder blade, breathing him in like he were fresh mountain air, felt incredibly nice and relaxing. He smells different than usual, without the musky-sweet tang of cologne clinging to him; his nose picks only clean skin and quality soap, his ever-present underlying of medication, and incongruous gentle warmth.

He worries he maybe was holding him too tight, and lifts his arms a bit to allow him to rearrange his limbs if he wants. The man rolls on his other side, facing him. Kratt is suddenly reminded that they fell asleep in dampish towels and bathrobes and nothing else.

"Is it still raining?" his boss asks, settling against his chest with his eyes still closed. The rain is inaudible now, the grumble of thunders faint and distant, but from his position Kratt can see a slice of window and the marbled shadow of raindrops on it. He doesn't want to disturb the silence with his own voice, he just presses his lips to the man's forehead and nods there.

"Is it around 4 am?"

Kratt lifts an arm up and palms the nightstand-shelf for his phone. Albeit vaguely, he remembers placing it there before undressing. He flips it open at some distance not to blind himself, and confirms it's 4 am. The sudden light wakes Val, judging from the deep inhale and stirring on her side.

He whispers his apologies as Le Chiffre tugs him back down. His boss nuzzles into his cheek and apologises for waking him in return. He says he wasn't asleep.

"Me neither."

"I was," Val moans. Kratt sees her curl up against Le Chiffre's back.

"Tell me how you found me," he commands, shifting minutely closer. Val's arm flops around his waist in a lazy swat, but he just captures her hand and runs his thumb over her knuckles. She emits a faint, grumpy noise.

Kratt sighs, recalling the events that led to their current situation.

He whispers, just a breath away from his face, and tells him about how everyone thought he was with another one of them, how none of them would dare to make a call for fear of interrupting business. Le Chiffre runs a hand over his eyes, exhaling in amused incredulity.

He tells him of his relief and panic and relief and panic again. He tells him about the call and the tracking and the video.

His boss makes a face. "They made a video? But I don't...?"

Val's head peeks from behind him like a rising sun. A pretty ruffled one. She drops a kiss to his shoulder and says gently, "You were asleep, _miliy_."

He asks if they still have it. Kratt retrieves his phone once more.

"Well, that's pretty boring," is Le Chiffre's comment at seeing himself tied up and knocked out. Kratt doesn't actually watch it: he stares at the tiny clock at the corner of the screen, fighting the anxiety washing back at him. When he's permitted to put the damn thing away, he's glad his boss sinks into his hold again, glad to be able to squeeze him safe and sound in his arms. It takes him a moment to realise that terrible bone-deep tremor seized him again. "Boring as shit," Le Chiffre clips, breathing growing irregular.

Kratt rushes on his words to distract him, talks of the car ride and the diversion and the fight. Of Val's good strategy and nerves of steel.

"She was great," he says quietly, "she figured it all out, and she fought so well; I wouldn't have kept my head without her there. I was a mess."

"Just because you were so worried," Val says, sounding much awake and pleased. "Baby, he was so cool like, he literally said into the phone _'If you bend just one of his hair the wrong way, I'll make you regret it'_ in this angry growling voice– it was so cool."

Le Chiffre lifts an eyebrow in a way that says _'shitty move'_. Valenka shrugs and Kratt feels his ears flush red.

"I know," he utters thinly.

"But you had to be there to see how cool it was."

"Sorry, I was busy getting my hair bent the wrong way."

"Please," Kratt begs, hiding his face down into the pillow.

Le Chiffre makes him lift his head with a smooth, large hand on his jaw. The light is just enough to make out his thoughtful eyes, the slow pink flash of tongue wetting lips.

Then he's kissing him, full on the mouth, all at once. He melts into it like a starving man, unabashed.

It's not like they never kissed before: assisting Miss Val during play had granted him many occasions to watch, soothe, and kiss. In those moments he often thought he would have been content with the arrangement for eternity.

He could think of nothing sweeter than holding his boss in his arms as Val teased him until he keened and arched off the bed. And then have him cling to Kratt like a lifeline, gasping and shaking all over in a way that reminded him of much darker things. Though, he knew he was at the peak of pleasure, not in pain or panic, and allowed himself to love seeing him come undone. In those moments, even if desire chewed him raw, Kratt felt at peace.

Now, he kisses him the way he likes to be kissed, teasing and not holding back on the occasional gentle nip of teeth.

"So," his boss pulls away, his features graced with a soft smirk and as gorgeous as ever despite some scratching and bruising, "you'd go to such great lengths to avenge me, mh?"

He would. He would make the world spin the other way around. He'd climb mountains and swim through oceans. He'd die trying if needed.

"Yes," he says simply, leaning in for another kiss.

* * *

"When I saw you two... I thought I was dreaming," Le Chiffre murmurs, easing back down, hazed eyes fluttering shut. "Drenched in blood... my vengeful queen and knight, _my_..." he finishes with something mumbled they can't deduce. Kratt already mourns the loss of his endorphin-flavoured rush into higher intuition.

"_Aaand_ he's out," Valenka snorts, fondly shaking her head. "Goodnight to you, sweetheart."

Kratt smiles too. 'Baby', 'honey', and '_miliy'_ go in a decreasing scale of irony, but she never calls people '_sweetheart'_ without a good dose of snark.

"Well, that so didn't feel like launching the space shuttle, not at all," Val sighs out, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

Kratt clears his throat and apologises for taking over, and for leaving her unsatisfied. She says it's alright, that it was about time, that they needed it. And, though she wouldn't say no to some attention next time, she could almost get off from watching, wow, seriously.

He can't help but look down, embarrassed, but in his line of sight there is this impossible man that has him crawling at his feet, who made his best and worst dreams into the most amazing reality. He's increasingly less sure his heart can take all this.

He has to pull out, eventually. It's a little bit uncomfortable, but he bears it for the sweet mournful noise Le Chiffre utters in his sleep. He suspects that if he pulled him any closer they'd just fuse in a single entity. He doubts Val would be happy with that.

"He really is a bit impossible, isn't he?" Reading into his mind again, Val lulls him out of his thoughts. She's looking down at Le Chiffre's face, propped up on her elbow. "The _stupidest_ genius I know." Her face looks pensive, but her voice has that peculiar inflection that reveals its true softness, all harp notes and warm silk. "After all this time he still thinks..."

Kratt lifts his free arm to touch her, pull her closer to them. He could say many things now, _he's been on his own for a long time, has been betrayed many times, and time makes you forget people you can trust could even exist, one day we'll get through to him_. But he's sure Val knows those better than him.

He only gives her back her own words, hoping they'll soothe her, "You said to me, he's not used to boyfriend stuff."

She nods and leans into his touch. She cards her hand through Le Chiffre's hair, very gently, then tracks lower to trace the bite she left on his neck, almost indistinguishable from the marks left by gripping fingers. He hums, and doesn't stir.

Kratt grins, "I think we drained his batteries."

Val huffs from her nose. "Oh shit, I left the charger in my suitcase."

They attempt to keep still through a fit of giggling. Kratt can't remember a time he felt so many different emotions over such a short span of time. When he lifts his head, Val has sobered up again. He pokes at her questioningly.

She sighs, ponders a bit, and admits, "Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm really helping, or if he indulges me to keep me from leaving."

Kratt hesitates at that. Probably both, in all truth. Or maybe that's just what Le Chiffre tells himself.

"I can never tell if I'm helping or making it worse, either," he confesses quietly. Val lifts her eyes on him. "But I'm sure you did good too, _Miss_." He allows himself a small teasing smile, positive that she'll accept him. She smiles back, her eyes a touch over-bright, and jokingly orders him to sleep.

He adjusts his hold to be able to retain it if he falls asleep, curving around Le Chiffre, around them both. He feels Val's hands brush his as she mirrors him, curling in close.

He takes her hand, buries his nose in his _liebling_'s soft hair, and lets his eyes drift shut.

He feels at peace. Or better than at peace.

He feels whole.


	10. Every Night – Epilogue

Some pillow-talk, and a mushy epilogue.

* * *

It's 6 am. Valenka sighs, climbs to her feet bracing on the bed with one hand, sighs again. It's the umpteenth fucking time she has to haul her ass up from the floor in less than 24 hours, and she's beginning to question reality.

In her sleep-dazed confusion, she thought it had been a dream that made her roll out of bed. Now, her eyes adapting to the shadowed room, she sees the real reason: she and Kratt made the mistake of leaving their boss in the middle.

Le Chiffre has been known for _accidentally_ pushing people out of bed in the past, when he wanted to prove a point or not wanted to deal with them or just to be difficult, but Valenka is fairly sure this is not the case. He and Kratt are safely nestled in each other's arms and still sound asleep, at least judging from the faint snore-wheeze Le Chiffre is making. The sound had bothered her in the past, making her jolt awake and make sure he wasn't suffocating, and then having to shove her head into the pillow to go back to sleep. He loathes the idea of making sounds in his sleep, so she knows she wouldn't be hearing it if he were awake.

If he hadn't just knocked her out of bed – evident in how his legs are greedily stretching back, leeching the heat she left between the covers – she'd spend a moment to notice how sweet they look. Who is she kidding, she curses half-heartedly, she spends it anyway.

Le Chiffre, tall and imposing, looks deceptively demure pressed against his silent second in command; the delicate arrow shape of his upper lip has something decadent to it, parted with breath in the greyish morning light, stark red like a fresh cut. Kratt, minutely shorter and stockier, can't let go of the scowl on his face even in his sleep; his brow is furrowed and his jaw set, every bit as handsome and menacing as when he's awake. Maybe he's having dream issues too, Valenka thinks, observing his never-resting hands twitch on the sheet covering Le Chiffre's shoulders.

She finally tears her eyes from the sight, shaking her head a bit. She feels in equal parts smug and blessed with luck. She had to take the risk with them, and force her hand a bit; at moments she feared they wouldn't take off.

She could sense how badly Le Chiffre needed to just let everything go for a moment, still incapable of asking directly; she could sense how much steam Kratt was keeping in, trying to protect them from it. She could sense herself walking a sharp edge too, and still her own surge of violence caught her a bit by surprise. It felt much like trying to defuse a bomb, and getting to set off a controlled explosion instead. There's still to factor in which of his unpredictable moods Le Chiffre will wake up in, but for now she likes to consider the deed a success.

She tiptoes to the window to peer out the lowered shutters and closed curtains. They always have to be careful about that sort of thing, and as a result their rooms are always stuffy in the mornings. _Maybe that's why the poor man's wheezing_, she thinks, cracking the window open and yawning in the gust of morning petrichor that prickles on her sheet-printed skin.

The events of the previous night, prior to them _finally_ getting at it at 4 am, are a bit of a stunned blur. Yet, the more she stays awake the more everything clarifies in one block of rushed, endless minutes.

She swallows, worrying her lower lip against her incisors. She was angry at him, but still can't recall the events with clarity, doesn't know _why_ she got angry. The confusion in her memory bleeds into the present, blurring her vision until the prickling at the bridge of her nose tells her it's just tears. _The hell–?,_ she thinks, inhaling sharply. She concentrates on the distant clangour of garbage trucks, following golden flecks of dusty sunlight as they dance through the clouds into the room, into Le Chiffre's hair gleaming like a raven's wing.

It suits him, the red of love-bites on his pale, bruised skin. He looks like debauchment, a moonflower closing tired, crumpled petals, even more beautiful and fragrant once thoroughly _ruined_.

Eye caught by the sudden darkening of the chilly morning, she lays her palm down to look outside, startled. _They just turned off the street lamps,_ she scolds herself, _get a grip_. Her palm is right where Le Chiffre put his own while she managed to give him a panic attack.

She remembers him telling her something, damp hair and forced smile and wide, pleading eyes. He had seemed affected and in control at the same time, his face still and cold despite the turmoil she could sense. She had feared it was all in her head, and had been a bit of a loss at what to do. If Kratt hadn't been there, paying her steadying hand back a tenfold, she would have walked away.

_Oh, shit._ She thinks of all the times she stormed off after a fight, to give him space, give herself space, just get the hell away from him and his control and his mind games for a moment. How many times had he sunk to the floor, white as a sheet and cold all over, shaking so hard she had 112 dialled and ready while they attempted to bring him back? Was there Kratt with him, taking it all on himself, the both of them not saying a word? _What the _actual_hell?_

Valenka trains her gaze to the building across the street, up to the very top, to the nice vines and railings she barely noticed when he asked her to look. There it is, the house, the _home_.

It hits her. She was angry because he kept secrets from her, because he tried again to tie them, cheapen their bonds with material goods, and her feral brain couldn't spare an ounce of comprehension for that. She was angry because she gave in to her inner child sinking dirty claws into her possessions; because even though they fought to claim him back, he pulled away from them.

Valenka can barely see through the tears that refuse to either fall or dry up, but she spots the vines' vases, their little wooden grids running up the walls. He got her plants. It's a mistake, she just knows it. She'll never manage to care for them properly, their schedule is too hectic, it's been too long since she tried.

Maybe they require very little care, maybe someone will water them when they're not there. Maybe they just thrive in late summer storms and fights to the death, just like them. Who the fuck cares, she will have dirt under her nails again, have things sprout roots and grow, spill off the balcony, down the side of the house. Of their _home_. She rubs a hand over her eyes and squints, makes out bright dark leaves and pale yellow blooms. He got her _honeysuckles_.

Something she had hidden and almost forgot about, a box full of childhood treasures buried under unsteady foundations, tentatively cracks open. She doesn't fight the first tear that spills down her face, nor the ones that follow. She feels like she'll choke from all the rust chipping away from her heart.

Valenka tips her head until the cold window presses into her fringe, braces on the windowpane, and weeps. She allows the events of the previous day to come back at her cast in sharp, lightning-bright shadows, and wash away from her like the blood of maimed enemies under pouring rain.

She stands until she's cold, cleansed and naked and lost, across the street from the home she hasn't looked for in years. She peels away from the window, dries her face and tiptoes back to bed, sinking into the bliss of her lovers' body heat. They all have a long, difficult talk ahead of them.

Nestling again into Le Chiffre's broad back, she notices that Kratt is blinking, slowly coming awake.

"Up already?" he croaks, closing his eyes as she runs her fingers on the hair-stubble on his head in greeting.

"I had a brisk start," she whispers back, half-smiling. Kratt tilts his head at her, frowning at her reddened eyes. She waves a hand dismissively.

Kratt wakes their boss with a hand ruffling through his hair and a tender kiss on the temple. He stirs awake with a sharp inhale, humming a questioning sound.

"Good morning, sir," Kratt says, keeping his voice as low as humanly possible. Valenka is a bit in love with the way his harsh _r_'s roll back into his throat when he's just woken up. "You pushed Val off the bed."

"I did?" Le Chiffre groans, turning right without opening his eyes. He's not much of a sight to behold when barely awake, his hair rumpled and his left eye crusted shut with blood and gunk. She doesn't care.

She just humours him when he paws blindly at her, lying down within arm's reach and leaning in to kiss his forehead, just above his scar. His arm falls around her waist and he pulls her in close.

"I'm very sorry," he says into her hair, kissing it soundlessly. "How's your head?"

She lifts her right arm and lets it fall around him as well. "All good," she reassures. She has a bump, but nothing to worry about. Her fingertips ghost up his bruised ribs, very carefully. "How's your chest?"

"Oh, peachy." She pinches his side because it's too early for sarcasm. He gives a clipped yelp, and clears his throat. "Kratt, how's your everything?"

Kratt doesn't exactly make a sound, but he freezes for a moment, always a bit surprised to be addressed directly. Valenka stretches her arm to poke at him and he answers the unspoken call beautifully as always, lining his chest up to Le Chiffre's back and throwing his left arm over the both of them. Valenka feels Le Chiffre's pleased rumbling reverberate into her, and smirks down into his collarbone. She never met a man who enjoyed being in the middle as much as he does.

"I'm starting to feel it, actually," Kratt says when he finds his voice.

"I bet you do," Le Chiffre quips enigmatically, rolling on his back to put his arms around their shoulders in such an hysterically classical post-coital pose that Valenka can't resist the irony of demurely leaning her head on his chest. Kratt tilts his head at them, and she wants so laugh out loud. Being so close, she feels Le Chiffre inhale and hesitate before speaking. "Did I thank you two for saving my ass last night? My memory's a little... hazy."

"Not in _words_," Valenka teases. She feels compelled to lighten the mood, smooth out the uncomfortable edges of his admission; as he never allow himself the slightest shortcoming in matters of clarity of mind, she knows it took him all of his courage to admit that to them. The implications of what she said dawn on her a second late, but Le Chiffre is distracted with Kratt's lowered eyes and anguished face.

"It was the least I could do, help Val out after my inadequacy put you in danger." Kratt breathes in shakily, imperceptibly leaning away from them. "_Again_."

Valenka leaps to the rescue, propping herself up on her elbow and slapping her right hand on Le Chiffre's forehead before he says anything hurtful.

"Wait, are you actually _thanking_ people? Are you ill?"

He makes a noise of offence. "I am actually _capable_ of feeling gratitude, you know." He pauses. "Occasionally."

"And how is it? Discovering _gratitude_?" she snarks, making an arc shape with her hands. He actually stops and thinks about it, his gaze growing pensive. Valenka feels his fingers tap in succession against her shoulder; they're never still when he's thinking.

"Peculiar, unexpected, quite mortifying." Valenka feels the smile freeze on her face. She wasn't sure he was serious, but now he's doing that thing where he detachedly attempts to inventory what he's feeling. "As I'm placed in your debt, yet I have no immediate or granted way of repaying neither of you, the position I'm in is unpleasantly vulnerable. I'm subject to the fleeting emotions of not one, but two people: I cannot imagine anything more disadvantageous."

They just stare at him, speechless. Valenka dares a glance at Kratt, sees him still as stone listening to all the reasons their love and fealty causes him nothing but unpleasantness. And panic attacks. She sighs quietly.

"There's a logical fallacy, though," he drones on, index finger raised and following nothing but his line of thought. Valenka supposes they deserve it, they did ask after all. She _really_ should stop calling things. "And it lies in the perception of guilt."

"Okay, are you switching back to human-mode now, or do I have to reboot you?" she finally asks. Le Chiffre blinks, turning to face her like he just realised she's there.

"In this situation, I mean." He glances at Kratt and turns back to her, and she sees him struggling to put his thoughts in words. As much as they try to get him, he often has to. "When Kratt, here, pulled me back to my feet in Montenegro, he did it by taking all on himself. He said he's supposed to watch my back, and therefore it was all his fault."

Valenka props her cheek higher, interested. She never got around to ask what happened that time, while she was hiding in the other bathroom and dry heaving into the toilet after almost losing an arm. Her memory of the whole thing is a bit of a blur, but she vaguely remembers coming back to find them kneeling on the floor, some mutual apologies, and the three of them pulling themselves together somehow. She remembers Kratt not moving away from her side – and Le Chiffre's – for a single moment after that.

Based on recent events, she can now more or less imagine what happened. But she wants the juicy details, so she prompts, "He did?"

"Yes, it was _extremely_ effective," Le Chiffre says, managing to sound genuinely impressed. Valenka glances at Kratt, who's staring intently at this man talking about him without looking at him, conscious that he's there but ignoring him for the time being, to avoid direct confrontation. "Bypassing the fact that _I_ chose to go up alone, he convinced me that I wasn't at fault, and enabled me to focus again. It rewired my mind around the loop-problem that since I almost got us both killed, we were doomed to fail."

"That's pretty syllogistic, we only faced minor dismemberment," she can't help but joke, buried fear grazing icy fingers on her. No, it's just Kratt, touching her arm gently, comfortingly. Her saved arm. "Also we did fail, in the end."

Le Chiffre rolls his open eye in the most accurate likeness of adolescent annoyance she's ever seen on a grown man's face. "Thanks for the reminder, I hadn't noticed. Anyway, I'm not buying it again. This time I don't have to play high stakes against a Brit spy on steroids five minutes after getting strangled."

"I don't think he was on steroids, honey."

"The guy survived the _digitalis_, and a car crash, and... you didn't see what I did to his balls, Val, no man could face that." He and Kratt cringe in perfect sync. "He was _so_ on steroids."

Valenka feels herself doing the _'if you say so'_ face for a moment, then thinks about it. "Wait, that actually explains a lot."

"Told you. As I was saying," he glares sternly at her, she smirks and holds back from interrupting. "There's no need for Kratt to take my faults now. I can see how I put you both in harm's way." He cups Kratt's face in his left hand and pulls him back down. He whispers, "_Again._"

They kiss, and Le Chiffre murmurs a feather-soft '_dankeschön'_ on the corner of Kratt's mouth. If someone asked Valenka how she'd describe the light in Kratt's eyes when he pulls back, she'd throw her hands and say _'the motherfucking sun!'_

"Admit it, you just like sending Kratt on protective streaks," she says, making them smile with their foreheads touching like high-school sweethearts. "He'll go grey from all the stress, you know."

"Maybe I am already," Kratt says, waiting the beat with utter seriousness and a peculiar glint in his eyes. It takes them a whole of three seconds to get the joke, then they all drop their heads and crack up, chuckling into the pillows.

"I do, by the way," Le Chiffre says in a slightly winded voice, reaching up and taking the first salbutamol puff of the day. "It's very satisfactory."

"What, go grey?"

He regards her with the face normally reserved for indecisive players slowing down the whole game. She deems herself satisfied.

"Enjoy Kratt's protective streaks." A note of mischief graces his dry tone. "_And_ their aftermaths."

"Really good, huh?" Valenka says, proud. And relieved.

"Oh, I'm _wrecked._" He stretches languorously, smirking. "He was _brutal_, I still feel him there. I thought I'd break."

She smirks back, then notices the colour draining from Kratt's face.

"I– what?" he asks, swallowing almost audibly. His hands lift away from them again, as if he could cause them harm with his simple touch. The idea alone is enough to drive him into panic. That can be useful, but for now Valenka just groans and swats at Le Chiffre.

"That's because you riled him up. And don't try to act like you didn't love it, or so help me."

He rolls his good eye and turns left to face Kratt.

"I wasn't," he says a bit gruffly, manhandling Kratt's arms back around him.

Kratt gives in, still anguished. Valenka adores the way Kratt embraces him: the hand in his hair, grazing through short cherrywood locks, carding lovingly where rough fingers scratched and tore out; the arm around his waist, both tense and careful, a tender guard of bone and sinew shielding vulnerable organs, frail bruised ribs.

The way his hands hesitate on him still, as if he were touching the most delicate, precious thing in the world – a thing he's not sure could ever be his to touch.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, mournful, "I thought... I just wanted it to be soothing."

She understand what he means. She can see it pouring out his every gesture, the sweet, heart-melting lovemaking he means. That's why he's the absolute best aftercare giver she's ever met.

The idea alone _should_ be soothing, but she knows it's backwards with them: it would take trust and compromises and certainly not pent up adrenaline from kidnapping and fighting. It will take time.

"You soothe this one only with an iron fist, honey," she leans forward to kiss his scarred cheek. Le Chiffre makes a dry sound of resigned approval under her. "You did good."

She hopes her approval is enough to placate him, because if he's waiting for Le Chiffre's he's down to wait a long time. It always took her ages to have him admit he actually _enjoyed_ something. She likes to think she got her fine tuning from how impossible it was to tell when he was pushing himself too far from when he could really take her handling, in the past. They both still have their shortcomings, but learned a lot from each other.

"You did _perfect_," Le Chiffre quips, surprising all three of them, especially himself. He clears his throat, and doesn't backpedal. Valenka is downright impressed. "I meant that as a compliment. You should be proud. I'm with Val, you know."

Kratt's cheeks go redder than an ugly Christmas sweater, and he drops his gaze bashfully. Valenka wants to _wreck_ him. It takes her a moment to realise Le Chiffre is talking to her.

"Really, Val, you should step up your game here. I wonder if you can do better," he's saying with a sly smirk. "I have yet to see your _worst_, I think."

She gives him the look she usually reserves for men catcalling at her on the street.

"I see what you're doing here, trying to rile us up and getting us to compete," she warns, letting a bit of steel graze her voice. He looks far too pleased for someone whose plans are being thwarted once more. "And my advice is: _don't test me_."

He grins, eyes crinkling at the corners and all. His bruises and closed eye and crooked teeth disappear from her perceptions, washed away by all the stupid glory of his cheeks pulling up in unabashed, glowing joy. She feels her face heat up, her head spin. She remembers she's actually in love with this idiot. Yes, the same idiot that got her _honeysuckles_, for hell's sake.

She lured and tortured people and poisoned a man for him. She put her first priority aside for him. She quit smoking. She laid off the action, withered away in pretty dresses and restless lonely nights. She _waited_ for him. In return, he taught her that a name and a story don't make a human being. That a stubborn man always crawls back up from the pit, no matter how weak or guilty or how many times he falls back into it. That the _home_ you stopped looking for can be right across the street.

"That's why I keep you around, you're so smart," Le Chiffre says, his voice curling around the edges with affection and without the slightest hint of sarcasm. Even as some memorable chess matches from ages ago are washing back at her, she remembers clearly that he never said that in words before. She stares.

"I thought it was for my boyish hips," she blurts out in panic. She doesn't even know if she was aiming for humour anymore. She tries to fight the instinct to flee the bed for several moments before giving in and rolling out in undignified hurry.

As she stumbles to her feet, Le Chiffre says, "Well, I actually never noticed but really, wow, they're smaller than mine!" and Kratt follows suit, "I-I like them a lot, personally."

She shakes her head, resisting the urge to slap a palm on her face. Or theirs. "Guys, neither of you ever get an actual girlfriend. Please."

When only silence answers her, she somehow finds the guts to turn back. Sitting up shoulder to shoulder, they're staring up at her with identical raised brows.

"Uhm, I thought you were our actual girlfriend?" Le Chiffre says. When she can only stare in return, he crosses his arms on his bruised chest. There, he went and done it, made it all official by buying a house with some pretty climbers and saying a casual sentence. _Fucker_. "Really, I thought we had something special here."

Kratt shakes his head and, very gently, pulls her back on the bed by her waist, right in the middle.

Le Chiffre regards her in mock-sternness, "I feel so used right now."

She can't hold it in anymore. She hides her face between them and laughs until she can't laugh anymore, laughs until she's crying again.

They hold on to her, ships lost at sea, steadying each other all the same, on dark angry waves as on flat oily sunsets too beautiful to bear alone.

She's both lifeline and castaway, hungry ivy roots and ancient strong wall.

She's home.

* * *

Rather than a 'home' in the actual sense, the House Across the Street, as they are definitely calling it because _how could they not,_ becomes their impromptu getaway hiding-spot.

When they can get life to leave them alone for more than 24 hours in a row, and manage to spend some quality time there, Valenka – when she isn't pushed out of it of course – is often the first to wake and the last to leave the bed.

The conflicting desires of remaining bundled up and showering are bound to battle in her soul: the one they have is pretty much the bed of her dreams, soft and gorgeous and wide enough to accommodate three people and their varied sleeping habits. Sadly enough, though, there's still no way to shower while lying in it. She will have to come to term with this one day but, most of the time, she pretends to be still asleep until she feels her two bedfellows shuffle around.

They usually start talking right away, tackling the day with their voices all gruff and raspy from sleep: it's her favourite. She likes to snap her eyes open as if they'd woken her, and have them jolt and apologise, half-jokingly. They all know she would never be bothered to punish them so early in the morning.

They will all take a moment away from their morning to crawl to the centre and rub life back into their sleepy systems – because, contrary to popular belief and Leo's teasing whispers, they don't _always_ sleep in a puppypile in the middle.

She at least likes to tell herself that, to avoid the reality that there are probably no other men in the world more prone to post-coital clinginess than them, and she managed to land them _both_. And that falling asleep between them gives her some sort of womb-like sense of safety that she hadn't felt in ages. And they smell _so nice_ after she's done with them. But yes, there are times when they are content with kneading sore backs and shoulders and kissing aching heads and fall asleep to the reassuring graze of fingertips. Or ice-cold feet, it depends.

In the mornings, Kratt meekly asks to have his teeshirts back, which she and Le Chiffre are both guilty of stealing on account of their comfiness. And because the first few times, Kratt had been the only one remembering to bring some casual clothing with him, and the habit stuck. Her favourite is his worn-soft _Iron Maiden_ one, for an embarrassing variety of reasons.

The process occasionally leads to the peculiar sight of Le Chiffre clutching the hem of a _Diary of Dreams_ tee and daring Kratt to _'make him'_, which is sure to make things interesting. Unless they're late. She generally manages to kiss them mute, at least for a second, before tossing both stolen shirts at the resigned owner and heading for the shower.

She goes first, because she's the quickest and they all know it. Their boss takes so long they sometimes feel compelled to check on him, so it would be pure madness to let him go first: Valenka prefers most of her things chilled – drinks, meals, weather, pools – but _not_ her bathing water. Also, the obscene amount of time Le Chiffre spends in the bathroom gives Kratt time to get started on breakfast – he took to the kitchen like a kid in a candy store – and Valenka time to dry her hair, do her make-up and water her plants.

She has an arrangement with the old woman downstairs, to have someone water them when they're away; which is most of the time. Valenka was a bit wary at first, but by now she's sure the old woman has all her sons and nephews in _their world_, though not on sides hostile to them. They should be safe; Le Chiffre really has a good eye for locations.

The honeysuckles are already branching out on the railings: they're the invasive kind that blooms pale yellow in the fall, and strangles other plants. On the cusp of disbelievingly flattered and mildly offended, Valenka took revenge by sowing chamomile, cornflowers and, in a shaded corner, black barlows. If Le Chiffre caught on, he's not giving her the satisfaction.

The old woman taught her how to prune the honeysuckles, so that they don't smother each other growing on the same grid. When she pats Valenka's dirty hand with her own dirty hand, and tells her she really has a gift for gardening, Valenka's eyes betray her and prickle at the corners.

He got her a _grandma_, the goddamn idiot. When Valenka dies and gets to see her actual grandmother, she'll tell her she praised the wrong miracle-worker all along.

In the mornings, she always has the time to scrub the dirt off her nails in the kitchen sink and pick out outfits for the day. Occasionally, Kratt has her run to the store down the street for missing ingredients. Right then, walking briskly to warm up for their morning spar, she catches up on her emails, or marvels at the sun bathing the buildings in molten gold. She looks forward to the colder months.

If Le Chiffre isn't done prepping up when she comes back, she or Kratt go make sure he hasn't drowned or something, and usually drag him to the breakfast table sulking and still rubbing aftershave on his face.

Fortunately for them all, Kratt doesn't mind showering after meals, nor the inevitable cold water left.

They exercise at making their life sound normal, without forgetting old habits. If their kind of _normal_ could ever pass as normal, she has no idea.

They eat breakfast checking news on phones and Kratt's laptop, because being _home_ doesn't mean they can allow themselves to leave the world behind, and be surprised once they peek their heads out of the metaphorical front door. They always need to be prepared. They make plans, discuss routes to take, badmouth their old and new contacts. In a way, they never stop working.

Le Chiffre checks the stock market and rewrites security codes for his accounts, stealing fruit slices from Valenka's bowl. She updates their meeting lists for the day, and lets him have them if he looks worried at the numbers on his screen. Kratt just hides his smirk into his coffee, and gets up to slice up some more. He has a peculiar way of cutting apples, in latitudinal round slices that reveal five-pointed stars of seed pockets in the middle. It makes her think of Christmas decorations.

When they're _home_, they walk in bliss. All the same, they wouldn't let themselves be tricked into rosy dreams of eternity. At least, she attempted not to: those are dangerous thoughts to grow, more dangerous than guns and poisons and famished strays.

She knows their situational agreeableness has barely any spontaneity in it: it's part hard work, part co-dependence, part fierce territorial instinct. It's them clutching at control in the chaos that surrounds them, everywhere they go. Yet, those dangerous thoughts still grow, take root in her as in her companions, roots hungry for _home_ and safety and wholeness. Hungry for things people in their world should never hunger for. Valenka guesses she never learns: without anyone to hold her back, she was always one to walk headfirst into danger.

Almost all her plants are perennials. She has no intentions of mourning any stump in winter. Her honeysuckles will cling on, braving all the storms she'll call.

She'll do the same, and so will her lovers. They carved themselves a niche of perfection, and they'll fight tooth and nail to keep it. As it is, or even better.

As long as they're alive, they're open to possibility.

They are home.


End file.
